


not the nine o'clock news

by bysine



Series: news jazz! [1]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Broadcasting, Beef Brisket, Comedy, Inspired (loosely) by Jealousy Incarnate, M/M, One-Sided Kim Wonpil/Park Sungjin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25986733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bysine/pseuds/bysine
Summary: He'd handed Younghyun an umbrella once at the SBS entrance, polite and collegiate.“It’s not raining,” Younghyun had said.“It’s going to,” Wonpil had replied, and he had been right.Later, dry and safely on the subway, Younghyun had discovered the little Pororo sticker label on the umbrella handle with Wonpil's name on it and thought,oh, cute.---Jealousy Incarnate-inspired AU in which Younghyun is a TV news reporter and Wonpil a weather anchor dreaming of becoming an announcer.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Kim Wonpil
Series: news jazz! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106195
Comments: 45
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is _very_ loosely inspired by Jealousy Incarnate and so I am simultaneously warning for spoilers of a 2016 kdrama as well as for massive divergences from it. 
> 
> Also my knowledge of the world of tv news broadcast is mostly cribbed from the drama + some very gentle research so please forgive any inaccuracies.

When Younghyun had first returned to Korea after three years in Bangkok as the SBS Southeast Asia correspondent, he’d told himself that this would be the turning point in his life. 

He had not, however, envisioned said turning point becoming quite so literal, to wit: redirecting a news helicopter bound for Busan to make not one but two unauthorised stops. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think I’m going to be,” he said out loud, as the helicopter lifted off the SBS helipad for the second time that morning. 

If he looked out of the window he would see one (1) windblown Kim Wonpil on the roof, hastily making a dash for the staircase entrance. 

“Very,” said the helicopter pilot, wholly unnecessarily. 

\---

Jae — blessedly free on a Saturday now that he directed the weekday news programmes — was the one to pick Younghyun up at the airport, having grudgingly agreed to let him crash at his place until he managed to find an apartment that wasn’t stupidly far away from the station. 

He’d waited just long enough for Younghyun to set down his suitcase (full of shirts that were varying levels of sweat stained from Younghyun having to stand in the blazing heat while waiting for the studio to cut to him), before saying: “I know you don’t have plans tonight, you lonely fuck, so I’m going to buy you a drink.” 

“What,” said Younghyun, “not even going to wine and dine me before you get me stupid drunk on soju?” 

Jae had rounded up Sungjin, who’d been out anyway with his _hoobae_ Dowoon, and they’d ended up at the _jokbal_ restaurant everyone mostly frequented because SBS staff inexplicably got a discount. 

As was the way of things, they’d proceeded to get moderately drunk, and, as was the way of things, someone had invariably recognised Sungjin as the guy from _Unanswered Questions_ — “it was so scary when the gangsters were going to beat you up, I’m so glad you didn’t give up the USB.” Sungjin had gotten a pinched look at mumbled something about “Just doing our jobs,” and Jae, Jae that fucking lightweight had gestured towards Younghyun and asked, “Don’t you want a photograph with our star reporter?” 

“Oh,” said the other lady, who clearly did not watch _Unanswered Questions_ with the fanaticism of her friend. She squinted at him for a moment. Then: “Didn’t you do the Durian Special?” 

“Ah, yes,” said Younghyun, because three years away from Seoul and the fucking _Durian Special_ story had apparently been enough to obliterate from public consciousness everything else Younghyun had done before, including that story about unsafe work conditions for window cleaners (delivered while dangling unsafely by the side of a building), or that expose on _halmeoni_ s tricked into illegal wildlife smuggling. 

“Well, you’ll see him on the news soon,” Dowoon said, having apparently learned to defuse uncomfortable situations after three years of trailing after Park Sungjin with a camera. 

“Have you spoken to PD Oh yet, anyway,” said Jae, after Unanswered Questions lady and her friend had left. 

“You know, he only ever rang me once the entire time I was in Bangkok,” said Younghyun, “and it was to tell me that headquarters wanted a second Durian Special —"

"You did make them look delicious," said Sungjin.

"— three days before I was due back," Younghyun finished. "So I told him it wasn't durian season, and also that I'd be coming for the 9pm anchor slot."

“But that’s —” Jae began. "Well, let's just say that a lot of people are coming for the 9pm anchor slot."

"Look," said Younghyun, "I was on track for it three years ago and then Brisketgate happened —"

The others winced.

Technically, Brisketgate had been Younghyun’s fault. Being banished to Thailand on account of the ‘broadcasting incident’ that followed, on the other hand, was not — after all, it wasn’t as if Younghyun could have stopped either of his aunts by marriage-then-divorce from running on during the commercial break to yell at him, or the fact that Reporter Kim (his first aunt by marriage then divorce) had seen fit to splash (thankfully tepid) coffee in his face seconds before they’d gone back on air again. 

It would have been easy to misunderstand Younghyun as having done everything for the story, to the point of betraying his uncle by being the first to break the news that his franchise had been passing off beef loin as beef brisket — _beef loin is four thousand won cheaper per kilogram than beef brisket_ , he’d told the camera in the special report, because PD Oh had had very little faith in the general public’s knowledge of the price of different cuts of meat. 

Then Announcer Kim (his second aunt by marriage followed by separation — how Younghyun's uncle had ended up marrying first a reporter and then an announcer from the same broadcasting station being a chaotic mystery he had no interest in unravelling) had stormed in during the clip shouting, “Yah! Kang Younghyun! It’s not like anyone has died from eating beef loin instead of brisket,” and it had all gone to hell. 

In Younghyun’s defence, he’d only done the story first so that the news wouldn’t be broken in the worst possible way by bloody Park Jinyoung from KBS, namely, with an overdramatic ambush interview and his uncle caught on camera blustering and saying exactly the wrong things. Younghyun’s report had been calm and factual and had focused on important things, such as the difference between loin and brisket. 

But that hadn’t prevent him from being yelled at half-on air, then formally reprimanded, then yelled at by his parents all the way from Toronto, and, after having his stories suspended and/or redistributed for the next two weeks, persuaded (read: coerced) into taking up the Bangkok desk. 

His uncle had somehow, a year later, managed to successfully pivot into the premium blood sausage market. While a good thing, this had also led to the worst _chuseok_ ever, involving Younghyun’s uncle, Announcer Kim, and his cousin making some sort of conciliatory family trip down to Thailand, while Reporter Kim pelted him with KaTalk messages asking for status updates on whether her daughter (whom his cousin was) had said anything about her.

“Well, I wish you the best of luck,” said Jae, “because you’re going to need it.”

“You know my Chief Producer has been eyeing you for _Unanswered Questions_ since the start,” said Sungjin.

“Shush, he’s too busy shooting for the stars,” said Jae, pouring Younghyun another shot of soju. “Which, by the way, seems to be in vogue of late. Even that weather guy, you know — the one who had that giant crush on Sungjin —”

“Oh, Wonpilie-hyung,” said Dowoon. “He’s long gotten over it, by the way.”

“What about him?” said Younghyun carefully. 

“Applying,” said Jae, “to be a morning news announcer. Or at least Announcer Baek thought she saw him on the rooftop garden recording his audition tape the other day.” 

“Well, good for him,” said Younghyun. 

He’d met Kim Wonpil four years ago at the SBS onboarding for new employees (which HR had finally succeeded in making Younghyun attend one entire year after he'd joined SBS) and they’d suffered through half a dozen team building exercises together. At the time, Wonpil had been best known as the station’s first male weather anchor, having been offered the position after failing the announcer auditions. But because broadcast station gossip was what it was, everyone seemed to also be aware of his apparently planet sized crush on Sungjin (then at the height of his gangster-facing, USB-protecting fame), made all the more unfortunate by Sungjin's seeming inability to communicate with anyone who wasn't a potential lead.

He'd handed Younghyun an umbrella once at the SBS entrance, polite and collegiate. 

“It’s not raining,” Younghyun had said. 

“It’s going to,” Wonpil had replied, and he had been right.

Later, dry and safely on the subway, Younghyun had discovered the little Pororo sticker label on the umbrella handle with Wonpil's name on it and thought, _oh, cute_. 

The night Younghyun had received his transfer, they'd run into each other at the _pojangmacha_ near the SBS building, Younghyun just freshly yelled at by PD Oh (“Why didn’t you just let bloody Park Jinyoung do the story, you utter fool?”), transfer letter shoved deep into his backpack; Wonpil knocking back a glass of soju with his glasses shoved up his nose like that would hide the fact that he'd been crying. 

"You look like someone who's had a shit day," Younghyun had said, stopping in front of Wonpil’s table.

"Takes one to know one," Wonpil had replied, with a wry, hard little smile that never made it on the morning broadcast. 

"Mind if I join you?" 

"As long as you don't try to investigate whether the beef brisket is in fact loin," Wonpil had mumbled back. But he hadn’t said it in a vindictive way, and Younghyun had glanced at Wonpil's face and seen his matter-of-fact expression, as if it were a common thing to spectacularly destroy one's uncle's business and one's own career prospects in one fell swoop. 

It had felt almost like kindness. 

"Fuck you," Younghyun had said mildly, taking a seat, and laughing when Wonpil giggled. 

Up close, he’d seen why the station had been loath to let Wonpil go even though he'd not made the cut for announcer. There had been something luminous about him, some intangible warm quality that was probably perfect for informing the general public of impending thundery showers. 

And maybe it had been that, those kind eyes blinking over at him like he hadn't just colossally fucked everything up — combined with all the soju and the fact that he'd be based in Thailand for at least the next three years — which had made Younghyun slide into the taxi he'd helped Wonpil flag down; say: “I could drop you off at yours,” with a half-hopeful smile. And, when they’d stopped outside Wonpil’s building and Wonpil had offered him a cup of hot tea, Younghyun had nodded and followed him out of the car. 

Kim Wonpil lived in a rooftop apartment like the heroine of a drama, but that hadn’t been Younghyun’s concern at the time. 

“So I don't actually have any tea,” Wonpil had said when Younghyun had gotten up there, and Younghyun had laughed, and backed him into a patch of wall covered in notes about forecast models. 

Wonpil had leaned in to kiss him sloppily; Younghyun had let himself be manhandled onto the bed. 

“I'm not looking for anything serious,” Wonpil had said, after. 

Younghyun had looked up at him and been struck all of a sudden by the way the moonlight (or possibly the neon sign from the 24-hour _jimjilbang_ facing Wonpil’s window) lit the planes and angles of his face; the faint sheen of sweat on his neck and chest. 

“I'm leaving the country,” Younghyun had replied.

Wonpil had shrugged. “I wouldn't have invited you up for tea if you hadn't been.”

\---

So it made some kind of cyclical sense, perhaps, that when Younghyun reported to work on Monday — having spent all of Sunday stupidly hungover and under a pile of blankets to muffle the sounds of Jae yelling at the teenagers on his PUBG team — to find Kim Wonpil on standby at the main square, huddled in a raincoat, poised to open an umbrella so that when the studio cut to him he could adequately demonstrate to the general Seoul public that it was, in fact, currently raining. 

Their eyes met across the square. It was hard to tell in the rain but maybe Wonpil waved. Younghyun waved back, and hurried along. 

So he had that somewhat pleasant welcome to buoy him as he walked into the newsroom to the sound of half a dozen conversations coming to an abrupt halt as everyone looked up at him.

According to Jae, in the hierarchy of news station gossip, apparently ‘Kim Wonpil, male weather anchor, auditioning for morning news announcer position’ ranked far higher than ‘Durian Special Kang returns after three-year exile caused by obsession with difference between beef loin and brisket’. 

(“Fucking… _Durian Special_ ,” Younghyun had gritted out over the spicy jjampong they’d ordered in an attempt to stop being so hungover. 

“The ratings somehow always spike, even on the reruns,” Jae had replied, in no state to have intended that pun.) 

Jae’s interpretation of the gossip hierarchy might have been slightly flawed, thought Younghyun, judging from how some of the junior staff had actually stood up in their cubicles to crane their heads at him. 

Younghyun gave everyone a cursory nod, and then headed directly for Head Announcer Kim’s cubicle, where she was perched on her office chair with specially customised back-support, typing pointedly into a document that was quite clearly just the team lunch order spreadsheet. 

“My dear nephew,” she said, not looking up from her screen. 

The last time they’d seen each other had been at the departures area of Suvarnabhumi Airport, Younghyun having been remotely tasked by his parents to “see them off properly” and also to take back any souvenirs they might have to offload from their clearly overweight baggage. 

“Well, I’ll see you back at the station, I hope,” she had said, as close to an apology as Younghyun was probably going to get, while his cousin Ppal-gang had press-ganged her father into taking photographs of her airport fashion. (“It’s ironic boomer chic,” she’d told Younghyun in the car, when Younghyun had cautiously asked why she had on a bright red shoulder-padded blazer that Announcer Kim had definitely worn on air before.)

“No warm welcome?” said Younghyun now. 

“Not when I hear that you’re trying to elbow your way into the vacant 9pm anchor slot,” Head Announcer Kim replied, carefully inserting “no spring onions” in the remarks column. 

“Ah, yes,” said Younghyun. “That.”

“Ah, yes,” repeated Head Announcer Kim. “Are you aware of how many applicants we receive for the announcer position at each annual recruitment? Two thousand. And we select two on average. Per year. Can you imagine _anyone_ more qualified to be an anchor?” 

“Oh I don’t dispute that at all,” said Younghyun, resting an elbow on the top of her cubicle wall, dangerously close to the row of tiny succulents Younghyun remembered seeing on Ppal-gang’s Instagram account. “Nothing more galling than a reporter snatching up a prime anchor role. And _9pm_ at that.”

“Don’t pause for effect like that, it’s very gauche,” said Head Announcer Kim, with a deft little eye roll.

“What could be worse?” Younghyun continued, “Oh, besides _two_ reporters snatching up both roles.”

Head Announcer Kim looked up sharply. “Have you heard something?”

“Reporter Kim might be fielding a pair,” he said, because he might have been away in Bangkok for three years but he also had Park Jaehyung, newsroom gremlin. 

“As I thought,” said Head Announcer Kim, leaning back in her chair — at least as much as the lumbar support extension would allow. “Do you have names?”

“Someone saw her out for coffee with Reporter Lee Jun-ho, and the week before she was up on the rooftop garden having a heart to heart with Reporter Woo Hye-rim.” 

“Damn. They’d look good together.” 

“I know you don’t have a suitably experienced male announcer ever since Announcer Hwang went freelance,” Younghyun continued. 

Head Announcer Kim narrowed her eyes. “What are you proposing?”

“How about you make do with one reporter,” said Younghyun, pointing at himself. “And I’ll work with your strongest announcer.”

\---

“Well, I suppose she’s taking you seriously if she’s asked Announcer Baek,” said Jae at lunch. Next to him, Dowoon continued stuffing pieces of kimbap into his mouth with quiet, delighted intensity. 

“That’s… the 7pm anchor?” asked Sungjin, who never kept track of these things out of a combination of being above it all and just general obliviousness. 

“Yes,” said Jae, “the fastest move from 7am to 7pm I’d ever seen. Didn’t even have to put in the hours doing midday news like the rest of the rookie announcers.” 

“Hyung,” said Dowoon, having reached the end of his first column of kimbap, “if you’re anchoring the news, will you still be able to do special reports?” 

“I’m sure something can be worked out,” said Younghyun.

“Theoretically —” Jae began to say, but was promptly interrupted by the sound of Sungjin’s phone going off at a truly startling volume. 

“It’s the hospital land transfer lead,” said Sungjin, leaping up and gesturing towards Dowoon. “We need to go.” 

With a flourish, Dowoon tipped the rest of the potato salad side dish into his mouth while sweeping the rest of his kimbap back into its aluminium foil. Then he shoved back his chair and followed Sungjin out of the cafeteria, barely avoiding crashing into the weathercasting team as they entered. 

In their midst was Wonpil, who was looking decidedly less sodden out of his raincoat and suit from earlier that morning. Instead, he’d pulled on the ghastly SBS corporate zip-up jacket from several years ago, which practically nobody wore because it bunched up weirdly and made rustling sounds at the slightest movement. Nobody except Wonpil, apparently. 

While the others sat down with their food, Wonpil went over to help the _maknae_ weather anchor with getting barley tea for the table. 

“Realistically speaking, you’ll probably be studio-bound —” Jae was still saying. 

“I’m getting a refill,” said Younghyun, seizing Jae’s cup and draining his own. 

The look Jae was giving him was probably very long-suffering as Younghyun walked over to the drinks table, where Wonpil was diligently filling the last cup while his junior wobbled off with one tray. 

“So I heard you’ll be putting in an application at the open recruitment,” said Younghyun, by way of greeting. 

Wonpil finished filling his cup, and set down the bottle of barley tea without offering it to Younghyun. “And I heard you’ve thrown your hat in the ring for the 9pm anchor position,” he said, his face carefully, politely blank. Up close, Younghyun could see how his hair had sprung loose from whatever product it had been subject to that morning, and curled over his forehead.

“I’d say something about news travelling fast but it’s a terrible cliché,” said Younghyun. 

“It is,” said Wonpil, turning to go, SBS corporate jacket rustling as he did. 

“Well, all the best and all that,” said Younghyun, somewhat startled by the weird disappointment he was feeling. “For what it’s worth,” he added, wincing at how stupidly sincere he sounded, “I hope you get it.” 

Wonpil paused, and glanced round. This time there was something softer in his expression. “Yes, I hope so too,” he said. “Penthouse living, very hard to sustain on a weather anchor’s income.”

“You said it gets freezing at night in winter," said Younghyun, recalling Wonpil unlocking the creaky rooftop gate after the steep climb up the stairs.

“Very sweet of you to remember,” said Wonpil, still in that droll tone. “But I’ve since acquired a space heater and an electric blanket, while you were out trying all the durian in Southeast Asia.” 

“They said ‘Durian Special’,” Younghyun replied. "Clearly I had to sample more than one species."

Curiously, this was what made Wonpil laugh. It was a warm, brief thing, and when he rearranged his expression into seriousness again there was a smile tucked away in the corner of his mouth. 

“Of course,” said Wonpil. “Journalistic integrity and all that. Also a good way to slip in all the important stuff about deforestation in between.”

“Oh,” said Younghyun, surprised that Wonpil had actually watched it. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jae shuffling by, holding both their trays and delivering an eye roll emphatic enough to rival Head Announcer Kim’s. 

“Look,” he said, impulsively, “I wanted to ask if you’d like to get a drink after work sometime.”

He knew it was the wrong question to have asked the moment he said the words. An unreadable look crossed Wonpil’s face, and then even that hint of a smile had vanished again, replaced with something as pleasant as it was distant. 

“Not anytime soon, I’m afraid,” said Wonpil. “I have an obnoxiously early bedtime — you know how the 7am news call times are.”

Younghyun frowned. The 7am news slot was largely for rookies, which Wonpil was decidedly not. 

Wonpil must have caught the confusion on Younghyun’s face, because he shrugged. “I got moved back. It was a slap on the wrist,” he said. “Wardrobe incident.”

“Unfortunate,” said Younghyun, with a commiserating grimace, even though he wasn't entirely sure how someone could have managed a wardrobe incident if they'd simply been wearing a suit.

Except, as it turned out, Wonpil _hadn't_ been wearing a suit during the evening broadcast the week before. A simple online search of ‘Kim Wonpil weathercaster’ had revealed half a dozen clips of him giving the forecast for that evening in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a pair of shorts which ended just slightly above his knee. 

Nothing in Wonpil’s delivery had betrayed the fact that this was a bona fide broadcast disaster, however; he’d simply gone on about how the heat had finally broken just before the weekend, and that viewers should expect cooling temperatures and sunny skies perfect for outings, smiling brightly as he reminded people in the central region to still bring along umbrellas in case of sudden light showers, and gesturing with his hands as he told viewers in Busan that they should expect to be able to see the stars at night. 

PD Oh had fired people for less, thought Younghyun. The only reason Wonpil had simply been moved to the 7am broadcast was undoubtedly because of the tremendous ratings spike he must have caused, judging from the buzz online about ‘Weathercaster With Refreshing and Perfect Boyfriend Look’. 

It would probably be weird to watch the clip again, thought Younghyun, moving to close the tab. But as he hovered his cursor over the ‘x’ button he found himself glancing again at Wonpil in the clip, paused mid-gesture while pointing at Seoul on the screen behind him, and was reminded, suddenly, of how he’d quite appreciated the line of Wonpil’s shoulders in that light-polluted rooftop room of his. 

\---

“So,” said PD Oh, appearing at Younghyun’s cubicle. “How badly do you want this?” 

“I’m sorry?” said Younghyun, rising from his seat, having spent the past two minutes staring at the login screen of his computer while trying to decide if it was worth breaking his no-coffee streak on his mere second day back. He’d come in early enough this morning that the tail end of the 7am news had still been playing on the television monitors in the lobby and inside the lifts, just in time to catch the last minutes of Wonpil giving the morning forecast, dressed in a hanbok (possibly in anticipation of _chuseok_ ) while standing on the roof of the building. 

“As you can see, the winds are very strong,” Wonpil had told the camera, while almost being whisked away by said winds, the fabric of his blue and yellow hanbok whipping madly around him.

“The 9pm position,” PD Oh was saying, gesturing with one of those packets of green juice that the sales reps were always coming round with at lunchtime (‘ _oriental raisin_ ’, it read, ‘ _for men’s stress_ ’).

“Badly enough to form an unholy alliance with my dearest aunt who hates me, why do you ask?” Younghyun replied.

“I hate to break the news to you, Reporter Kang, but both your aunts hate you,” said PD Oh.

“Sorry I wasn’t specific, I meant Head Announcer Kim.” Younghyun pointed at the oriental raisin juice. “What exactly is ‘men’s stress’?”

“Apparently my blood pressure is, as the experts say, ‘high’,” said PD Oh, sucking emphatically on the straw. 

“Never would’ve guessed,” Younghyun deadpanned, earning himself a swat on the head with the ratings printout that PD Oh stalked about with every morning. 

Younghyun ducked, and held up his hands. “What brings you here, anyway? Do you have something to offer me?”

“Well, your dearest other aunt is fielding candidates who each have three years worth of stories under their belts,” said PD Oh. “So unless you have something up your sleeve…”

“I did important work—” Younghyun began.

PD Oh waved a hand. “Can I be frank?” 

Younghyun raised an eyebrow. “Did you really need to ask.”

“The way I see it, you’ve basically got the durian special,” said PD Oh. “I know you’ve done other things, but that’s how it is.”

“And?”

“But I can give you the high school gambling syndicate lead,” PD Oh continued, “and first dibs on the next sexy thing.”

“I suspect you and I have very different concepts of what is sexy—”

“— yes, let’s not go there —”

“Also, you’re being uncharacteristically supportive of my ambitions.”

“Can’t I just look out for you?” said PD Oh, with a smile that looked like it was costing him some amount of men’s stress to give. “How about first dibs on the next _two_ big leads.”

“Ah, PD-nim, now you’re making me very worried,” said Younghyun, fixing PD Oh with the same piercing stare he’d deployed with great effect on evasive politicians and shifty CEOs. 

To PD Oh’s credit, it took several seconds before he finally caved. “Oh all right,” he said, finally. “It’s the annual recruitment video. They need warm bodies.” 

“Why do we need a recruitment video when we get thousands of applications every year,” said Younghyun. 

PD Oh shrugged. “Well, Director Jung from corporate said something about how KBS was doing one,” he said. “And how they have ‘stupid Park Jinyoung with his stupidly handsome face’, as if he hadn’t been selected and trained by SBS.” 

“The nerve,” said Younghyun, who had been around for the tremendous fallout after Park Jinyoung had defected close to four years ago, and had long become accustomed to the levels of petty rage that mid-to-senior management felt whenever his name was invoked.

“So you’ll do it, then,” said PD Oh.

“I agreed to nothing,” said Younghyun.

PD Oh took a moment to drain the last of his oriental raisin drink. “When I say first dibs, Reporter Kang,” he told Younghyun. “I mean it.” 

More than the first dibs, what Younghyun needed were allies in his campaign to beat out the very capable and very charming _sunbae_ Reporter Kim would be fielding. After all, it wouldn’t do to get on PD Oh’s bad side quite this early (assuming Younghyun had ever left said side).

And so Younghyun paused, then steeled himself. “Fine,” he said. “First dibs on two leads, and that high school syndicate.”

PD Oh raised his fists in the air like he’d scored a winning goal. 

“You fool,” called Jae, popping up from his cubicle, together with the half a dozen people who’d apparently been eavesdropping on this conversation. “I can’t save you from yourself.”

“Hang on,” said Younghyun. “Is there a catch to the catch?”

\---

“I swear I’m going to go freelance,” said Announcer Lee Sunmi, picking at the lime green power suit she reluctantly had on, which someone must have excavated from the depths of the SBS costumes warehouse.

“I’m confused,” said Younghyun, raising his arms to see just how billowy his sleeves really were (the answer was very). “Why does it feel like someone on the production team lost some kind of massive bet?” 

“You’ve got it all backwards,” said Announcer Park Yeeun, who had been given a golden jacket with shoulder pads pointy enough to put someone’s eye out. “We’ve _all_ lost. They, on the other hand, probably half-assed a five minute brainstorm session in which someone mentioned Park Jinyoung, someone else lazily leapt to ‘Hong Jinyoung’, and they wrote ‘TROT’ on the whiteboard before heading out for _bibim guksu_.” 

“Oh goodness,” said Announcer Lee. “It makes total sense.” 

“What does?” someone asked.

They all turned to find Wonpil at the door to the green room, wearing a silk shirt so covered in flowers that it was rivalled Announcer Park’s jacket in its blindingness. Also, someone had decided it was a good idea to have him wear a _choker_. 

“This has got to be some kind of a mistake,” said Wonpil, glancing down at his shirt and then at Younghyun’s.

“Your mouth’s fallen open,” whispered Announcer Park, nudging Younghyun with her shoulder pad.

It was not, as it turned out, a mistake.

“‘ _Flower Men and Power Women of SBS_ ’...” Younghyun read off the concept brief they’d been handed seconds after entering the unused News Room A. 

“Are these rewritten lyrics to Hong Jinyoung’s _Love Battery_?” asked Announcer Park, who had flipped ahead to the second page.

“...exactly who is the target audience for this recruitment video?” asked Announcer Lee, while Wonpil folded one silky arm under his elbow and nibbled at his lip as he studied his brief. 

“Apparently,” said PD Oh (Sehun, of the variety department, who was considerably younger and less grumpy than Newsroom PD Oh). “This sort of thing tests really well with young people.”

“Ironic boomer chic,” Younghyun deadpanned, thinking of Ppal-gang’s ridiculous instagram photoshoot. 

PD Park (Chanyeol, from that new department that did something to do with digital media) snapped his fingers. “Exactly right.” 

"I was _joking_ ," said Younghyun, alarmed.

“Wow,” said Announcer Park, glittering pointily. “I hate this already.”

While Announcers Park and Lee were filming the ‘Power Women’ segment of the video, Wonpil stood off to the side, practising opening and closing the prop umbrella one of the crew had given him, while Younghyun attempted to negotiate with Wardrobe about how unbuttoned his shirt needed to be. 

“But Reporter Kang,” said Costumes Supervisor Lee, “that’s how this shirt is meant to be worn.” She held up a picture of Lee Seung-gi billowing in front of a stage light, the front of the same shirt gaping open like he was an extra from _Pirates of the Caribbean_. 

“I’m a _reporter_ ,” said Younghyun, buttoning up two more buttons on his shirt only to have his hands immediately swatted away and his work undone. “They’re supposed to watch this and be inspired to become _reporters_.” 

One of the terrifying costumes interns leaned over from the suitcase she was perched on. “I’m very inspired,” she said, giving Younghyun a beady look. 

“Noo _na_ ,” said Wonpil, appearing beside Younghyun and causing him to jump. “Have mercy. He’s very distressed.” 

Costumes Supervisor Lee softened immediately. “Pilie-ah,” she said, “it’s the _aesthetic_.” 

“I know,” Wonpil replied in the most mollifying of tones, “but if he’s not comfortable in it, it’ll show on camera.” 

“I’m very uncomfortable,” said Younghyun with feeling, greatly aided by the fact that Wonpil close up, with his floral silk and choker and very tight trousers, was utterly distracting. 

“Oh, all right,” said Costumes Supervisor Lee, waving a hand. 

“ _Thank you_ ,” breathed Younghyun, turning away to fumble with his buttons. 

“But only because you asked, Wonpilie,” Costumes Supervisor Lee continued. “We haven't forgiven ourselves since that broadcast incident with the suit."

"Ah, no," said Wonpil, soft and relaxed in a way Younghyun couldn't remember ever hearing before, "that was my fault, noona."

"Which part of that girl spilling a _ssam_ accidentally-on-purpose onto your broadcasting suit was _your fault_ , may I ask?" Costumes Supervisor Lee demanded.

"Oh, I don't know," said Wonpil, and there was the little edge of wry bitterness again in his voice, "maybe the part where I ducked out for drinks with her two hours before my call time just because she said she was heartbroken."

Younghyun turned around in time to see Costumes Supervisor Lee chucking Wonpil on the chin, and felt a slight surge of — something close to envy, irrational as it was, of the easy familiarity of the gesture. 

"Too soft, that's what you are," she said fondly. "That'll teach you to stop buying your ungrateful _hoobae_ samgyeopsal and soju, they certainly don't deserve it."

“ _Oppa_ , you need to save money in this economy,” said Scary Intern. 

“I am very frugal,” Wonpil protested. 

Scary Intern, whom Younghyun was now certain had been behind the boomer chic concept, fixed Wonpil with a very Ppal-gang-like stare. “You just bought all of us ice cream the other day and you don’t even have the SBS staff discount.”

“It was hot,” said Wonpil in a small voice.

Younghyun frowned. “You don’t have the staff discount?” he asked. 

“Contract staff,” Scary Intern replied, sounding world-weary. 

“But you aren’t —” Younghyun began, then paused. “Aren’t you?” 

“All weather anchors are contract staff,” said Costumes Supervisor Lee, while Scary Intern whispered, “ _Awkward_ ,” under her breath. 

Younghyun glanced over at Wonpil, who gave him a benignly blank sort of smile. 

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised about this, Reporter Kang," said Costumes Supervisor Lee.

“I —” Younghyun began, but they were interrupted, then, by one of the ADs calling them over. 

Later, after they’d finished the shoot (which had involved increasingly complicated dance moves and locations culminating in the four of them jazz-stepping across the SBS helicopter pad in the blazing heat while Oh Sehun’s stupid drone hovered overhead), Younghyun turned towards Wonpil. 

“Is that why you’re applying for the announcer position?” he asked. They were standing by the rooftop staircase entrance, the rest of the group having ducked back inside.

Wonpil gazed back at Younghyun, and — he really was lovely, Younghyun thought, even more so when lit in the wash of evening sunset, hair curling free despite hair and makeup’s best efforts, copiously flowering shirt hanging off him just so, the black band of that choker sitting against the line of his neck. 

Then Wonpil spoke, and Younghyun forced himself to drag his gaze back up to Wonpil’s face. He was smiling, and somehow it was worse than if he’d just glared. 

“Do I look like I applied to SBS with the intention of being the first male weather anchor on a major broadcasting channel?” 

“Look,” said Younghyun, catching Wonpil’s arm as he turned to go. “I’m sorry. About earlier as well.”

Underneath the silk, he could feel the muscles of Wonpil’s forearm shift as Wonpil clenched and unclenched his fist. “There's no need to apologise."

"I insist," said Younghyun. "I was being an insensitive idiot."

Wonpil shrugged, and slipped free of Younghyun's fingers. "Sure,” he said, softer this time. He reached for the door, which had swung gently shut in the intervening moments.

"And for what it’s worth, you’re a very good one," Younghyun added. "Weather anchor, I mean."

Wonpil’s gaze flicked from the door handle back to Younghyun, and he levelled Younghyun with an opaque look.

Then: "Thanks," he said, the iciness in his voice undercut by the way the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Why don’t you buy me a drink and some samgyeopsal with your SBS staff discount.” 

\---

He woke up the next morning to a terrible headache and the disorienting cacophony of two different evening news programmes playing at the same time. 

Cautiously, Younghyun poked his head out from under the covers. Across from Younghyun’s mattress in the corner of Jae’s living room, Jae was seated cross-legged on the beat-up leather sofa, watching what sounded like _KBS News 9_ on the television and _JTBC Newsroom_ on his laptop. Overlaid on top of both programmes was the sound of Jae crunching too-loudly on those water crackers he was always eating. 

“What day is it,” Younghyun croaked, feeling like the desert. A prune. A shrivelled leaf in the wind. 

“Saturday,” said Jae with his mouth full, hitting pause on Park Jinyoung’s face just as he was directing a look of dignified disgust towards an unsafe playground swing. 

Younghyun shut his eyes, trying to think back to the last thing he remembered. They’d gone for dinner, Wonpil and him; and there had been drinks, and Younghyun had asked Wonpil about why he’d wanted to be an announcer — 

“What is this, the SBS recruitment interview,” Wonpil had replied, but his eyes had been merry over his soju glass.

“No, I’m really interested,” Younghyun had protested. Surely he mustn’t have been _that_ drunk at that point, and yet he remembered _feeling_ drunk as Wonpil had smiled back at him, sweet with alcohol.

“I’ve always liked the idea of… communicating,” Wonpil had said, holding up his glass. “The absolute clarity of it, you know? Where people don’t notice you, but they understand what you’re saying and they feel what you’re feeling.” 

“I think you’d be good at that,” Younghyun had mumbled, while the harried part-timer had come by to change their grill. 

“Wow,” Wonpil had said, sipping on his soju, then setting it down in favour of picking at the cucumber side dish with his chopsticks. “You just about made it not sound patronising.” 

“Are you always this prickly?” Younghyun had asked, more accustomed now to the wry push and pull that was speaking with Kim Wonpil; the reflexive way he closed himself off at the first sign of intimacy. “I don’t remember you being this prickly.”

Wonpil had shrugged. “I’m worse when I’m drunk.”

“You were pretty drunk three years ago,” Younghyun had countered.

“I was pretty heartbroken three years ago,” Wonpil had replied, before seeming to realise what he'd said and clapping a hand over his mouth. “ _Fuck_ , I’m not drunk enough for this.”

Younghyun had taken another shot. “I promise I won’t remember any of it,” he’d told Wonpil, “so you can just spill.”

“There’s nothing much to spill,” Wonpil had replied, but he’d topped up Younghyun’s glass anyway. “I'd just been rejected very kindly by Park Sungjin even before I'd so much as confessed.”

“Oh, fuck.” 

Wonpil had shrugged. “Probably for the best, but it still stung.” 

And oh — Younghyun remembered now how his heart had twisted when Wonpil had glanced over at him, mouth curving upwards, eyes bright; a little sad but equally mischievous. How Younghyun had been inspired to knock back another shot — out of sympathy? For courage? — and say:

“Park Sungjin is a fool, who could say no to Kim Wonpil?” 

Wonpil had laughed and said, “Now I know you're really drunk,” and — 

“Why,” said Jae now, “are you groaning despairingly into your pillow.” 

_I’m an idiot_ , Younghyun thought, from the depths of his embarrassment. 

“I can’t even remember how I got back,” he said instead.

“Kim Wonpil brought you,” Jae replied, and watched, impassive, as Younghyun sat up abruptly and then clutched his head at the fresh pain this sudden movement brought. 

“Wonpil was here?” Younghyun whispered in sudden panic. “Where —”

“He slept on the couch, apparently,” said Jae. “Also he just left, like, two minutes ago.” 

Younghyun’s mad scramble to get out of the house was less a scramble than a prolonged and painful stumble, spectated by a darkly amused Jae. But Younghyun had soldiered through more blinding headaches than this, and Wonpil had also apparently set out his wallet, phone and keys neatly on the side table, so it was easy to sweep them up after he’d pulled on some clean clothes — had Wonpil helped Younghyun out of his? — before venturing outside. 

He found Wonpil down the street outside the pharmacist’s, waiting to cross the road. It was probably for the best that Wonpil spotted him, because Younghyun wasn’t sure he could have managed to catch his attention otherwise, his throat still feeling very much like he’d tried to eat several of Jae’s crumbled up water crackers. 

“Wait, please,” Younghyun managed to croak, holding up a hand, before turning and entering the pharmacy. 

The pharmacist, an unimpressed-looking man with an expression reminiscent of Park Jinyoung’s, produced the hangover remedy drink before Younghyun could even ask for it. 

“And painkillers, please,” Younghyun added. 

Behind him, the door chime went off again as Wonpil stepped inside. 

“I’m thinking of getting hangover soup,” said Younghyun, handing over some cash and opening the bottle before the pharmacist had rung it up. 

Wonpil shrugged. He certainly looked fresher than Younghyun felt, even if he’d spent the night on Jae’s couch. “Is this an invitation?”

Younghyun downed the hangover drink with two painkillers. It tasted like artificial mango and regret. 

“The way I see it,” he said, “you've already slept over at mine. We might as well get breakfast.” 

“No offence,” Wonpil replied, “but you live on a spare _yo_ in the corner of Director Park’s living room, so technically I slept over at his.”

“I’m working on that,” said Younghyun, after a cough, ignoring the way the pharmacist was silently judging him. 

Wonpil laughed. “Okay,” he said. “Hangover soup, then.” 

It felt surreal to be walking with Wonpil like this, outside of work and in this quiet neighbourhood on a Saturday morning. Wonpil had laughed at the old Dongguk University t-shirt Younghyun had put on inside out. 

“ _Jae knew_ ,” Younghyun had groaned. “And was that why that pharmacist that looked like Park Jinyoung was judging me?” 

“He did look a little like Jinyoung,” Wonpil had agreed.

The hangover soup place was on a street just round the corner from the pharmacy, and while Wonpil settled in at a table to place their orders, Younghyun went off to the restroom to turn his shirt right side in. 

He came back out to find Wonpil resting an elbow against the low table, face turned towards the television fixed in the far corner of the room, where the weekend morning news was playing. 

“Respectable again,” said Younghyun, sitting down opposite Wonpil, who smiled and nodded. 

In what was probably an occupational hazard, they lapsed into silence for several minutes as they watched the news, until they were interrupted by the arrival of their food. 

“I never got to ask you,” said Wonpil, after they’d spent several more moments eating. Or rather Wonpil had eaten; Younghyun had simply inhaled his soup and rice. “Why are you aiming for the 9pm anchor role?”

Younghyun glanced up. The look on Wonpil’s face was genuinely curious. 

“Well,” said Younghyun, “I was on track for it three years ago.”

“Yes,” said Wonpil, “but why?”

Younghyun shrugged, puzzled. “Why not, I guess?” he said. “Isn’t that what everyone aims for?”

Wonpil gave him a considering look. “Is that what Kang Younghyun aims for? Because everyone else wants it?”

As with that time three years ago at the _pojangmacha_ , Wonpil had said this in a way that might have sounded harsh or vindictive coming from someone else, but which from him sounded simply matter-of-fact. It stung a little, nonetheless.

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Younghyun. 

Wonpil shook his head. “Nothing's wrong with that,” he said. “I just thought it would be a pity to see you stuck in the studio when you've done such interesting stuff outside of it.”

“Like the durian special,” said Younghyun, attempting to sound self-deprecating but unable to hide the flatness from his voice. 

“Not just that,” said Wonpil. “I liked your coverage on the Thai elections, and that scary one you did off the roof of that bird’s nest factory in Indonesia, and the _halmeoni_ s in Vietnam…”

“When did you even watch those?” asked Younghyun in surprise.

Wonpil shrugged. “I don’t know, they've always got those reruns of Correspondents Report at 4am,” he mumbled, and then busied himself with crunching on an enormous piece of radish kimchi.

“Well, thanks, I guess,” said Younghyun, after a beat. “Glad to know someone is watching those.”

“You're welcome,” Wonpil said, and smiled — not the bright exuberant thing he did for the cameras or the hard, polite one in the SBS corridors, but something warmer and softer, which made Younghyun's stomach do a thing he was certain hadn’t been caused by his hangover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was trying my hand at forochel's fic writing method i.e. to outline chaotically and then fill in the blanks, except that without the impetus of needing to tell myself how the story ends (because I'd outlined it quite comprehensively) I wrote half of it and then got distracted. Rest assured the rest is outlined (quite comprehensively)! and I will get round to it... hopefully with more motivation now that I've posted the first half. 
> 
> Thanks as always to forochel for cheering me on in this journey of writing hot mess kang younghyun, a man who had a 1 night stand with kwp THREE YEARS AGO and is somehow still so hopelessly far gone for him that it borders on farce. Thank you!!! for all the comments and also for the very helpful observations on pacing. <33333


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hot mess kyh's journey continues.

“I promised,” PD Oh said, tossing a folder onto Younghyun's desk with a triumphant flourish, “that I’d give you something sexy.”

“There is absolutely no context in which that sounds appropriate,” said Younghyun glanced down at the cover page. “Mudflats.” 

“Soon to be _UNESCO World Heritage_ mudflats,” said PD Oh, waggling his eyebrows. 

“Oh my,” Younghyun deadpanned. “Catch me. I swoon.”

“Well, if you’re not taking it —” PD Oh began, reaching for the file.

Younghyun grabbed it. “Oh, I’m definitely taking this story of debatable sexiness.”

“Good,” said PD Oh, with a grimace that was almost a smile. “Go package it nicely.”

“I guess you do love me after all,” said Younghyun wonderingly. 

“Don’t make it weird,” PD Oh replied. “And definitely don’t tell your aunt —” 

“Don’t tell me _what_?” said Reporter Kim, appearing at PD Oh’s shoulder so suddenly that both PD Oh and Younghyun jumped. 

Reporter Kim swiped the mudflat folder with the speed and determination of someone who had once apparently snatched an incriminating ledger book from the arms of a fleeing instant food conglomerate chairman. 

“I knew it!” she said to PD Oh, brandishing it at him. “Farming off my story to someone else? After I’d set up all the interviewees? Have you no shame?” 

Younghyun eyed the cup of coffee in Reporter Kim’s other hand, and scooched backwards as surreptitiously as he could. 

“Well, you can’t go in any case,” said PD Oh. “You have to anchor the 7pm news.” 

It was hard to forget this fact, given how much time Reporter Kim spent going on at length about reporters making for better news anchors than announcers.

“I told you, it won’t take long,” Reporter Kim retorted, “I’ll do all the interviews in a row, get a shot of the bloody mud flats from the helicopter, and be back by —”

“If there’s a delay —” 

“If there’s a delay I’ll anchor the news from there,” Reporter Kim replied, not missing a beat. “Just imagine me striding along the mud flats —”

“I highly doubt you’ll be striding, by the way, mudflats tend to be very, well… muddy,“ said Younghyun, which proved to be a mistake, because PD Oh immediately took the opportunity to make a hasty escape. 

“I’ll just, uh, leave you two to sort out this difference in views,” he said, turning abruptly around and darting out of range of Reporter Kim’s answering swat. 

“You’re a bloody coward,” Reporter Kim called, while PD Oh brisk-walked out of the newsroom, elbows pumping. 

“You know, Reporter Kim,” said Younghyun, as peaceably as he could manage while also staying alert for any projectiles. “This isn’t going to help Reporters Lee and Woo snag the anchor position.”

“You know, Reporter Kang,” Reporter Kim replied. “Not everything is about the auditions. It’s a location near enough to the studio and a compelling and significant story. Why shouldn’t I do it?”“

“You can’t have your mudflat octopus and eat it,” said Younghyun. 

Reporter Kim laughed. “Isn’t that exactly what you’re going to try to do anyway?” she asked. “But do you think they’ll let _you_ go dangle off of buildings, or spend two days staking out some _chaebol_ ’s holiday cottage once you’re also the 9pm anchor?”

Younghyun shrugged. “Let’s find out when I am.”

Reporter Kim paused, and gave him a look that was uncomfortably compassionate. “You’ll learn,” she said, and Younghyun was reminded suddenly of how stern she’d been, back when Younghyun had had the first inkling that he wanted to go into news broadcasting; how she’d ruthlessly torn apart his early student work. The closest he’d ever gotten to a compliment from her had been a grim nod after he’d gotten through his interviews. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Younghyun asked. 

“Go on then,” Reporter Kim said. “I'll give it to you.”

“I’m sorry?”

Reporter Kim scowled, and tossed the mudflat folder back on his desk. “Take it, I never liked the mudflats anyway.“

“Something tells me I’m going to regret this,” Younghyun said, narrowing his eyes. 

“I owed you one anyway,” Reporter Kim continued, “for all the updates on Ppal-gang when she was in Thailand.”

Younghyun thought back to that disastrous visit and suppressed a shudder. “That wasn’t meant to be a favour —” 

“Make of it what you will,” said Reporter Kim brusquely, having unilaterally decided that this conversation was over. “And are you still sleeping on the floor of Park Jaehyung's living room?”

Younghyun groaned. “Why does everyone know this?”

Reporter Kim rolled her eyes. “Stop being pathetic and find a place!” she snapped, and stalked away. 

From somewhere in the newsroom came a muffled, “hear, hear,” from a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jae.

While Younghyun sputtered, PD Oh wandered back in, now holding a new packet of oriental raisin. “All sorted out?” he asked.

“Why do I feel like I’ve just been given some kind of test,” said Younghyun, “which I don’t know if I’ve passed or failed?” 

“How do you think I’ve spent the past fifteen years?” replied PD Oh, slurping demonstratively on his juice. 

Amidst the drama of Younghyun getting assigned the mudflat report, however, nobody had thought to mention that the morning weather report was also going to be given from the soon-to-be-UNESCO-Heritage mudflats. Or that PD Oh had agreed for Younghyun’s crew to give the weather anchor a lift back in exchange for fresh octopus. 

“Glad to know that I rank slightly below mudflat octopus in the grand scheme of things,” said Wonpil wryly, when they found him waiting for the crew on a bench near a boot rental shop. 

“Well, octopus is very nutritious,” Younghyun replied, before he was called away again to finish the final shots in front of the gleaming mudflats. 

Wonpil, in the meantime, had put away the book he’d been reading and was chattering away with the Scary Intern who had come along probably with the express purpose of terrorising Younghyun with a makeup brush. 

Later, when the report was done (which had at some point involved Younghyun in rubber overalls, holding a bucket of clams), they were bundled back into the vans.

“I realise I’ve never seen you in action before,” said Wonpil, as he expertly unwrapped his triangle kimbap over a piece of tissue paper balanced on his lap. “There is a perceptible gap between Reporter Kang and shirt-inside-out Kang Younghyun-sshi.” 

“Shocking, isn’t it,” said Younghyun, unable to suppress a smile. 

“Well,” said Wonpil, “I find it quite amusing.“

They both laughed, and Wonpil somehow managed to drink a bottle of strawberry milk without spilling any of it before he promptly fell asleep on Younghyun’s shoulder. 

It was nice, thought Younghyun, having the weight of Wonpil’s head against his shoulder and hearing his gentle snores, even though he had to ignore the gleeful knowing looks of the rest of the crew and Scary Intern’s unsubtle attempt to take a photograph. Perhaps he did have to thank Reporter Kim after all. 

\---

“So,” said Announcer Baek A Yeon, when they were practising for the anchor audition in an unused studio. “You’re awfully close to Kim Wonpil.” 

“Am I?” said Younghyun, not glancing up from his page of practice news copy. 

“I don’t know, you tell me,” said Announcer Baek, who was personable enough but had that vague air of privilege that people liked to call _polish_. “Anyway, apparently he got the highest score on the SBS announcers admission test years ago, but in the end they gave it to the other guy — you know, the one who does morning radio now…”

“Announcer Cha?” asked Younghyun. “Always-Late Cha? Wasn’t he the one who totally panicked when they switched his script at the screen test?”

Announcer Baek shrugged. “Well, it probably helps that his father was Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Affairs at the time.” 

“That’s messed up,” said Younghyun, perhaps with a little too much feeling, because Announcer Baek gave him an odd look.

“That’s par for the course, isn’t it?” she said. “Anyway, they offered Kim Wonpil the weather anchor job as a matter of formality without expecting him to actually take it.”

“But he did,” said Younghyun. 

“Yeah,” Announcer Baek replied. “He should’ve stuck it out for the next recruitment season, but I guess…” she paused, and shrugged her Chanel-clad shoulders. “Well, who knows?”

“Not everyone gets to stick it out for a year living rent-free in Seoul,” Younghyun pointed out.

Announcer Baek shrugged. “I guess not?” she said. “But we work with what we have, no?” 

There were a great many things Younghyun wanted to say in response to that, but years in the station had taught him to pick his battles, and so he said nothing. 

“Anyway,” continued Announcer Baek, who to her credit seemed to have sensed the sudden chill in their conversation. “I was surprised you wanted this. I mean, it makes _sense_ , sure, but I didn't realise you wanted so badly to do solely studio work.”

“I don’t want to do just _any_ studio work,” said Younghyun, trying not to sound curt. “I want the prime time.” 

Announcer Baek laughed the same delighted laugh that garnered her thousands of likes on the ‘behind the scenes’ Instagram account she ran with some of the younger announcers. “Maybe finesse that answer a little before the actual interview?”

They finished practising and packed up in slightly fraught silence, before Younghyun hastily slipped away first on the pretext of checking on the footage for the high schoolers story. Wonpil’s recruitment as a weather anchor had indeed raised a lot of eyebrows at the station when it had been announced, but Younghyun had, at the time, assumed that Wonpil had been somewhat happy with the outcome, from the way he’d buzzed politely around the studio helping the crew out, and his general pleasantness. 

Now that Younghyun had actually properly interacted with Wonpil (drunken one-night-stands excluded), he was beginning to suspect that at least some of that had been just a very determined front. 

He was interrupted in this train of thought by none other than Wonpil himself, when the lift doors opened on the night room floor and Wonpil entered, holding a mug and with a sleep eye mask shoved up his forehead. 

There were little Pororos marching — or were they flying? — across Wonpil’s eye mask.

“Oh,” said Wonpil. “Someone’s working hard.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” said Younghyun. “Using the night rooms?”

Wonpil nodded. “I wouldn’t recommend it, if you’re looking for an alternative to Park Jaehyung’s floor,” he deadpanned.

“Have mercy,” Younghyun replied, “it’s a temporary arrangement.” 

“I certainly hope so,” said Wonpil. He paused, and gave Younghyun a sidelong look. “Is it true that the hot chocolate from the reporters’ lounge has more chocolate in it than the one for general use?” 

And this was how Younghyun ended up clandestinely filling Wonpil’s mug (which had a Pororo at the bottom of it) in the reporter’s lounge at close to midnight, while Wonpil tried not to look like he was lurking in the corridor. 

They went up to the rooftop, Wonpil holding the door open while Younghyun balanced Wonpil’s mug and his own paper cup in his hands.

“So you’ve been practising hard,” said Wonpil, gazing out at the MBC building opposite them. 

“Yes,” said Younghyun. “Just getting the details right with Announcer Baek. Part of the evaluation is how well we work together, and we need our scores to be as high as possible.”

“I assume the highest scoring team gets the 9pm news,” said Wonpil. 

“Yes, and then the next highest scoring team gets 7pm,” Younghyun replied. 

“And third place gets the dreaded midnight slot,” said Wonpil. 

Younghyun nodded. “Also known as oblivion,” he said dryly.

Wonpil took a sip of his hot chocolate. “What are your prospects like? I hear Announcer Baek’s very good.”

“She’s fine,” said Younghyun, “but she has a habit of using the same expression all the time.” 

“It’s a rather pretty expression,“ said Wonpil.

“Well, pretty or not, it needs to match mine,” Younghyun replied, “and also the nature of the news we’re reporting. You can’t be half-smiling prettily if the first news item is that half a mountain caught fire. And then there’s the closing — so many people do closing remarks that serve no purpose. It’s up to us to keep the viewers’ attention after the weather report.”

“I had no idea there were so many anxieties following up from the weather report,” said Wonpil with a wry smile. 

“Well, if it’s informative and engagingly reported, we should follow up with the same energy,” Younghyun said. “Give viewers a reason to keep watching till the end.” 

“Ah,” said Wonpil, still in a half-jesting tone. “I’ve learned a lot. Perhaps I should have taken notes. For my own audition.” 

“Well,” said Younghyun, suddenly awkward. “You’ve — you’ve got a lot going for you.”

Wonpil raised an eyebrow. “Do I?” 

“Yes,” said Younghyun, looking down at his cold hot chocolate. “You do, actually,” he repeated. “You’ve got years of experience, so they know you don’t get camera shy. And — and you’ve got good diction, you respond well to changing circumstances, and well… there’s a warmth you have. You make a connection.”

He looked back up again to see Wonpil staring down at his own mug. Wonpil’s ears were very red. 

“You’re very kind,” said Wonpil quietly, after a pause.

“I’m just telling you what I’ve observed,” said Younghyun. 

“You’re maybe the first person who’s unequivocally said that it’s a good idea for me to do the announcer audition,“ said Wonpil. 

Younghyun shook his head. “Surely not.”

“Reporter Kim’s just annoyed they’ll have to train another rookie to do the weather if I get through, and, oh I don’t know…” Wonpil shook his head. “People think I’m getting ideas above my station, or just generally that it’s so much extra _trouble_ when I’m perfectly fine where I am.” He paused, and then frowned. “But you know, I’ve kept my head down and done the work. I’m not going to stick in my lane just because everyone else will be happier if I do.”

In that moment Younghyun looked at Wonpil and was struck by the strength of his resolve; found himself admiring that clarity, almost envious of it. 

Then Wonpil yawned a jaw-cracking yawn without bothering to cover his mouth and Younghyun felt a laugh bubble out of him before he could stop himself. 

Wonpil blinked at him, but before either of them could say anything, they were interrupted by the sound of extremely loud _pansori_ singing, which was coming from Wonpil’s pocket.

Wonpil pulled out his phone. “It’s my go to sleep alarm,” he explained, turning off the music. “I suppose I should go to sleep.” 

“Yes,” said Younghyun, still caught between laughter and surprise. 

After they’d said their goodbyes in the lift and Wonpil had exited at the night rooms floor, Younghyun went down to the editing room and sat in one of the booths. As he waited for the computer to start up, he thought back to that night after Brisketgate that he’d spent in Wonpil’s apartment, the perfunctory way Wonpil had made clear that he had no intention of this being anything more than a one-time thing. 

But he'd let Younghyun stay for ramyeon on the _pyeong-sang_ out on the roof, and chatted about how the place got really cold in the winter, and then, the next morning, had sent Younghyun a message on Katalk saying, ‘ _All the best_ ’.

Caught up in preparing for Thailand, Younghyun had just sent back a generic sticker and a ‘ _thanks_ ’. Now he found himself regretting, for the first time, not properly replying.

\---

It wasn’t that Younghyun had now intentionally set out to give Wonpil auditions advice. It just… slipped out, every time Younghyun saw him. 

Like on Monday, when they ran into each other while Wonpil was buying iced Americanos for what seemed like the entire wardrobe team.

“Because it’s for the morning news, there’s a ninety percent chance they’ll do a simulation test,” he said, over the roar of Announcer Cha’s ridiculous ice mango drink being blended.

“I’m sorry?” said Wonpil, pausing in the middle of counting out his change. 

“In the morning, there’s tons of breaking news,” Younghyun told him. “They’ll probably throw in an additional news script on the spot during the test.”

Wonpil blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Thank you,” he added, before scurrying off to pick up the cardboard tray of coffee. 

“Ah, Reporter Kang,” said Announcer Cha, spotting Younghyun and coming over, swirling his newly-acquired mango drink in his hand. (Who drank frozen mango at nine in the morning, thought Younghyun.) “Had any durians recently?” 

“It’s not durian season,” Younghyun gritted out, while Wonpil approximated a wave goodbye with one elbow and trotted away. 

Or in the elevator, on another day, in the half a minute they were alone after a gaggle of interns had gotten out: “When you get a new script, memorise the first subject and the last sentence in one second. Then look at the camera,” said Younghyun. “That’s the most important part.”

“And good morning to you too,” said Wonpil, with a little smile, as the elevator doors opened. 

And at the cafeteria, when Dowoon had abandoned Wonpil in order to pack a hasty lunch on the move for Sungjin. 

“Scripts filled with numbers will be the most difficult,” said Younghyun, when they sat down. “I’m sure you know the numbers with long vowels.”

“Yes,” said Wonpil. “Two, four, five, and fifty. The rest have short vowels.”

“Good,” said Younghyun. “There will be four cameras in total, and you should focus on the one in the centre — camera number 2. Fix your eyes on the lower part of that camera. When you turn to look at something, move your face along with your eyes, because even a short side-glance can be distracting for viewers.”

“Okay,” said Wonpil, “I’ll remember that.”

“Did you guys catch Park Jinyoung rescuing a kitten in the middle of his live report last night?” said Jae, sliding in beside Younghyun with his tray. 

“Yes,” said Younghyun, “I was in the living room all five times you replayed it.” 

“Ah,” said Wonpil, “domestic bliss.”

“He’s a tolerable housemate,” Jae told Wonpil, “if you ignore the snoring and the walking about in his underwear.” 

“A glowing recommendation,” said Wonpil, while Younghyun choked on an extra-long strand of spring onion kimchi.

Any further interactions with Wonpil were sadly interrupted, however, after Younghyun had ended up getting discovered while doing a story about a secret gambling den in a _jimjilbang_. He’d escaped, but not before being hit in the face and mildly fracturing his arm.

This had greatly pleased PD Oh, who, after ascertaining over the phone that Younghyun was not gravely hurt and could in fact make it back to the studio to give his live comments, had apparently literally rubbed his hands in glee at the prospect of a ratings spike.

“Take that, Park Jinyoung and kitten,” PD Oh said, when Younghyun had finished his segment, and patted Younghyun’s slinged arm like it was a talented child at a violin competition. “Also, HR wants a report on your risk assessment lapses.”

“You signed off on that risk assessment!” Younghyun protested.

“And I’ll sign off on this report as well,” said PD Oh, striding off to harangue someone about the HD cameras making everyone’s pores look huge. 

“You must be feeling awful,” said Announcer Park (Yeeun, of the pointy shoulder pads), after the broadcast had finished. 

Younghyun paused, thinking about the frisson of pure fear he’d felt when his hidden camera had been discovered, the seconds of panic when he wasn’t sure if the production assistant upstairs had picked up on his distress message. And yet, as they’d put the footage together for the report, he’d felt a sense of something he could probably describe as satisfaction. 

Or maybe it had been because he’d been partly out of his mind on painkillers. It was hard to tell. 

“I’m sure I will, once the medicine wears off,” said Younghyun. 

Announcer Park laughed. “I guess you can’t wait to be in the studio.”

“Yes,” said Younghyun, nodding along, even though a part of him was painfully aware of how unconvincing he sounded. 

“I’m pretty certain reporting doesn’t have to be _quite_ so dangerous,” said Wonpil, when they ran into each other again at lunch two days later, after Younghyun had deemed himself fit for work again. 

(Jae, who also shared Wonpil’s sentiment, had been mostly unsympathetic towards Younghyun’s convalescence. His tender care towards Younghyun had been limited to tossing a half-finished packet of water crackers in Younghyun’s direction before retreating to his room for an “important face-off with that Mark Tuan”). 

“I am nothing if not dedicated,” said Younghyun. Any attempt to seem rugged and uncaring was swiftly undermined, however, once he tried to chew on a piece of radish in his soup and had to clutch his tender jaw in pain. 

“Let me get you some ice cream,” said Wonpil kindly. 

\---

In Thailand, a combination of distance as well as the daily travails of being a team of three tasked with covering the entirety of Southeast Asia had meant that there had been very little time for Younghyun to think of anything apart from his work, and plotting his return to headquarters. 

It was understandable, then, that he hadn’t given much thought to Kim Wonpil in the course of those three years, apart from the one time he’d accidentally opened one of the quarterly department email newsletters HR insisted on compiling, and had come across a picture of Wonpil at a random CSR event, helping to shower a puppy. 

Younghyun had considered, fleetingly, sending Wonpil an email all casual-like, perhaps to say, _nice photo_ or something equally meaningless. Then someone — either Bambam or Kim Yugyeom, their beleaguered cameraman — had called him away for something or other (possibly because the farmer was now opening another type of durian and Younghyun had to eat it) and Younghyun had forgotten entirely about the email. 

Now, however, Younghyun found himself returning to all the little moments he could remember of Kim Wonpil from before. 

Like that ridiculous SBS onboarding when they’d first met, where Younghyun had snuck out for coffee and returned to find himself paired with Wonpil for trust falls.

“Shall we just say we did it,” Younghyun had said.

Wonpil had just shrugged. “Sure,” he’d replied, “but that lady from HR is coming over right now so you might want to hide your coffee.” 

Younghyun had ended up being made to do it anyway, on a stage demonstration with Announcer Cha, who’d ended up dropping Younghyun. 

Later, with PD Oh’s blessing, Younghyun had made a strategic escape at the start of the employees’ lunch mixer, but not before catching sight of Wonpil nervously taking a seat at the same table as Park Sungjin, whose supervisor had clearly been guilted into sending a representative. 

Then there had been SBS News Sports Day, in which everyone got weirdly competitive over inconsequential activities like lifting rice sacks or relay racing (except the batons were printouts of news stories, in a weird organisation-wide inside joke which nobody appreciated). The reporters’ team had earlier sent a junior round so that the participation lists could be filled up as equitably as possible. In a stroke of luck, Younghyun had snagged the _hotteok_ eating competition, which had been a good use of his considerable talents. 

Wonpil, on the other hand, being the most junior weather anchor at the time and the only man in the weather anchors team, had been tasked with a plethora of activities, including but not limited to everything that took place out in the sun. 

(Wonpil had not, however, been asked to lift rice sacks, which had been the specialty of one of the Eunjus (either Kim or Choi; Younghyun always confused them). She had, the following year, left SBS altogether and found a second career as a personal trainer-slash-competitive bodybuilder). 

So it had been a very sweaty and woebegone Wonpil who had taken his place next to Younghyun in front of a startling array of hotteok. 

“Should you be seeking medical attention?” Younghyun had asked. Wonpil would not have been the first person to do so; earlier, Jae had managed to fall down and injure one of his fingers despite having been (a) on a water break; (b) standing still on the perfectly level track surface; and (c) nowhere near another person. 

“I’m not about to fall for your diversionary tactics, Reporter Kang,” Wonpil had replied.

Before Younghyun had thought of a reply, the competition bell had sounded and he’d had to turn to the task of eating more hotteok than anyone else at the table. 

Neither of them had won; Younghyun’s valiant efforts had been easily eclipsed by one of the sports news unit’s ravenous interns. After, while Younghyun had clutched his stomach in his chair, Wonpil had finished the last bite of his first (his _first_ , thought Younghyun) hotteok and handed Younghyun a bottle of water. 

“Should _you_ be seeking medical attention,” he had asked, with just the barest hint of a smile. 

And then, finally, there had been that dinner for the weekday newsroom, just a month before Brisketgate, when PD Oh had finally persuaded both of Younghyun’s aunts to agree to having barbeque. Even though they’d booked out the entire restaurant, the Unanswered Questions team had somehow been allowed in (probably because the restaurant staff had only verified that they were from SBS), and had been absorbed into the festivities. 

Younghyun remembered extricating himself from a particularly scintillating conversation involving Jae and the other office gossip gremlins to visit the restroom, only to find Wonpil by the entrance of the restaurant, carefully arranging a pair of boots so that they were facing in the correct direction. He had jumped when he’d noticed Younghyun, and had gone so violently pink that Younghyun had felt embarrassed on his behalf. 

“Let me help you with that,” Younghyun had said, while Wonpil had been clearly struggling to come up with an explanation as to why he had chosen to arrange these boots, and these boots only. “Nice of you to bother with everyone’s shoes,” he had added, in the most blithe tone he could muster. 

And he’d crouched down and started matching pairs and turning those around as well, Wonpil squatting speechless beside him, until someone from the restaurant had noticed and hurried over to do the rest. 

Younghyun had then tried to put on his own shoes — he had, after all, still not gone to the restroom — and had ended up tripping over his feet. Wonpil had caught him, and they’d laughed about it, and Younghyun hadn’t given that much further thought except to hope, vaguely, that whoever it was felt the same about Kim Wonpil. 

Then, after dinner, none other than Park Sungjin had put on those boots, and Younghyun had realised that Wonpil’s chances would be very slim. 

Wonpil must have known, too — everybody knew that Park Sungjin’s main passion in life was answering unanswered questions (privately, he also liked trot music) — and yet that hadn’t stopped him from trying. And some of Wonpil’s weather anchor colleagues must have been aware of this, because when the group had adjourned to the noraebang later, they’d lined up a bunch of duets and enthusiastically coerced Sungjin and Wonpil into singing together. 

Except, as was the way of such things, Sungjin had ended up getting an urgent phone call halfway through the first verse of _Us, Again_ , and Wonpil had been left to sing the second verse on his own while everyone else had exchanged awkward glances. 

Looking back, Younghyun wasn’t quite sure exactly what sequence of events had led to him getting the second microphone; only that it had somehow been passed along and Younghyun had picked it up in time to harmonise with Wonpil on the second half of the chorus. He remembered, now, the shocked look Wonpil had given him at that moment, before he’d recovered and continued singing. 

Younghyun at that time would not have been able to explain why he’d decided to join in, or why he’d launched into the song more flashily than he’d normally allow himself at a work gathering, hamming it up so that by the end of the song, it had been less a duet than a very exuberant solo performance by Younghyun, accompanied by Wonpil laugh-singing and Jae shouting in the background for Younghyun to stop showing off. 

Now, on reflection, Younghyun thought that perhaps it had been the look he’d seen on Wonpil’s face when Sungjin had given his muffled apology and rushed off — that mix of vulnerability and resignation, like Wonpil had expected this and yet had not been able to stop himself from hoping otherwise. 

\---

“Did you never entertain the possibility of Kim Wonpil?” asked Younghyun.

Sungjin choked on the piece of gopchang he was eating. 

“What?” he coughed, once Dowoon had dutifully thumped him on the back. “Why bring this up now?”

“So you were aware of him, at least?” said Younghyun. 

Sungjin frowned, and grunted ambiguously as he picked up more gopchang.

“Let’s not forget, friends,” said Jae, in an attempt to intervene, “that Park Sungjin of three years ago had _just_ found fame after the infamous gang members USB drive incident. I’m sure Wonpilie wasn’t the only one captivated by that clip of Sungjin shrugging off his jacket and getting away in the nick of time.”

“Hyung was so cool,” said Dowoon.

“What do you mean _was_?” asked Sungjin, through a mouthful of tripe. 

“Chew properly, hyung,” Dowoon replied peaceably. 

“To be fair, our Dowoonie also had a cool moment when he refused to let go of the camera,” Jae added.

“I didn’t know it was an option!” cried Dowoon. “It was my first week and they told me not to lose it.”

Sungjin chewed, and swallowed. He turned to Younghyun. “Would you rather I just led him on?” he asked. “And why are you so interested, anyway?” 

“I’m not —” Younghyun began. “I… uh. Never mind, let’s just drink.”

“You’re going to look ghastly on the correspondents’ report segment tomorrow if you keep drinking,” said Jae, pouring Younghyun another shot anyway. 

“What do you mean ghastly,” said Younghyun. “My face is perfect.”

“Also anyway, speaking of Kim Wonpil, I hear he's kind of screwed for the announcer audition this Friday,” Jae continued, “because apparently they shifted the camera test earlier so Choi Hwa-jeong — you know, the former Head Announcer — can attend as a panellist before her flight to Boracay.” 

“How much earlier?” asked Younghyun. 

“Eight in the morning,” said Jae.

“Doesn’t that mean Wonpil-hyung will have to run over once the weather broadcast is done?” asked Dowoon.

Jae shrugged. “I guess so.”

Wonpil would be delivering the weather report in the main newsroom. The camera tests, however, were usually held in Newsroom A, which was housed in an annex beside the main building. To get from the main newsroom to Newsroom A would involve first travelling from the 11th-floor main newsroom to the ground floor lobby, before crossing the central courtyard to the annex and going up to the Newsroom A on the 5th floor. With the morning weather report usually scheduled to air at ten minutes to eight, and given the elevator rush hour as everyone reported to work, it was extremely possible that Wonpil would not be able to make it in time. 

“I’m going back to the station,” said Younghyun suddenly, knocking back his shot and fumbling around for his jacket. 

“You just came from there,” Sungjin pointed out.

“Yes,” Younghyun replied, pausing for a moment. “But I just remembered — uh. Something about the oil spill dolphin death.” 

“Didn’t they call you back to say that it was from natural causes?” asked Jae. 

“Isn’t it enough that a dolphin has died?” Younghyun countered.

“Oh, go on,” said Jae, waving him away.

\---

“Did you hear about the camera test?” asked Younghyun, bursting into the night room.

The blanketed lump in the bottom bunk sat up. “Reporter Kang?” 

It was Announcer Cha, who was wearing one of those bright blue webfoot octopus sheet masks everyone seemed to be either buying or selling in some kind of station-wide multi-level-marketing scheme. 

“Sorry, wrong room,” said Younghyun, backing out in a hurry. 

“If you’re looking for Weather Anchor Kim, he went out to take a call,” said Announcer Cha, doing his utmost best not to move his mouth as he did so. 

“Ah,” said Younghyun, “thanks.”

Announcer Cha gave him a thumbs up before turning to switch on a humidifier he’d plugged into a wall socket labelled ‘ _please do not unplug the lamp_ ’. 

He found Wonpil in the night room pantry with his phone propped up against an empty oriental berry carton, laughing at something a half-familiar voice was saying. 

“Oh,” he said, when he caught sight of Younghyun in the doorway. “Hyung!“ Perhaps the surprise had made him unguarded, because the smile that crept onto his face was a warm thing that made Younghyun feel things that were very much not related to the minimal amount of soju he’d had before this. 

Whoever it was on the other end of the video call must have caught sight of that same look, because he — and it was definitely a he; Younghyun thought he could almost place it — laughed and said, “Is that…? Oh _goodness_ , Pilie —“ 

“I’ll call you back, all right?” said Wonpil, hanging up before whoever it was could finish speaking. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Younghyun said; an uncomfortable lie. 

“Right,” said Wonpil, giving Younghyun an inquiring look. His Pororo sleep eye mask was dangling around his neck this time, and he was wearing a slightly oversized t-shirt bearing the words ‘SBS CSR DAY’, with a photograph of a puppy beneath them. “I thought you’d have left by now.”

“There was a thing,” said Younghyun, “about a dolphin that may have died in an oil spill.”

“That’s terrible,” Wonpil replied. “They don’t know if it survived?”

“Oh, no, it definitely died,“ said Younghyun, “but they’re not sure if it’s because of old age.”

“I see,” said Wonpil, looking only mildly perturbed. “I wonder what’s considered elderly in dolphin years.”

“Seventeen years on average, but longer in captivity,” said Younghyun. “But that’s neither here nor there. I heard about the camera test.”

“Ah,” Wonpil said, glancing down at his hands. “It’s very nice of you to be so concerned,” he continued, “but I’ll be able to make it.”

“You mean you’re going to run from the main studio to the annex —”

“— in fourteen minutes, yes.” When Wonpil looked up there was a defiant look in his eyes, like he was bracing himself for Younghyun to disagree. 

“That’s if there’s no delay with the broadcast,” Younghyun pointed out. “Can’t you take the day off?”

Wonpil shook his head. “Chief Producer is already annoyed enough at the fact that I’m auditioning. He thinks I should have quit before applying.” 

“But that’s ridiculous —” 

“Look, I timed it, all right? I can do it.”

“There are so many things that could go wrong —”

“Well,” said Wonpil in a quiet, angry voice, “I don’t have much choice except to try, do I?“ 

Younghyun was about to reply when he was interrupted by a cough from behind him. It was Announcer Cha, still in his octopus mask and an actual silk dressing gown. 

“I left my eye mask pack in the refrigerator,” said Announcer Cha.

“Oh,” said Younghyun, stepping into the pantry so that Announcer Cha could enter.

Amidst the tense silence, Announcer Cha retrieved his chilled gel eye mask, and then proceeded to carefully open it in front of them.

“I see you found Weather Anchor Kim,” said Announcer Cha congenially, as he layered the mask over his eyes with the painstaking precision of someone placing a screen protector on a brand new phone. 

“Yes,” said Younghyun tersely, “I did.” 

“He flung the door open and everything,” Announcer Cha told Wonpil. “I guess it must have been urgent.”

“A dolphin died,” said Wonpil, straight-faced apart from a slight twitch of his mouth. “They’re not sure if it’s because of an oil spill or old age.” 

“Tragic,” said Announcer Cha, before sweeping away, bemasked and berobed like some sort of skincare Batman. 

Left in his wake, Younghyun and Wonpil exchanged stunned looks. 

“Remind me again why he’s using the night room?” said Younghyun, after a pause.

“I think PD Oh gave him some kind of warning about tardiness,” Wonpil replied. He shrugged. “He puts eucalyptus oil into his humidifier. It’s nice.“

There was another pause as Younghyun boggled a little at this information. 

“Look,” said Wonpil finally. “The way I see it, all I can do is try, all right?”

“Right, yes,” said Younghyun. “Sorry, for overstepping.”

Wonpil waved a hand. “It’s fine.” 

“I guess we can just hope that everyone miraculously decides not to use the elevators at that time,” said Younghyun.

“Actually I’ll be taking the stairs,” Wonpil replied, so matter of factly that it made Younghyun huff a wondering laugh.

“Why are you the way you are?” he found himself asking before he could stop himself.

Wonpil regarded him for a moment. “Are you drunk, Kang Younghyun-sshi?” he asked softly.

“I don’t suppose this is particularly sober behaviour,” said Younghyun. “All this bursting into night rooms.”

“No,” Wonpil agreed, “not really.” 

“Look,” said Younghyun. “I just think — I mean. I think you just deserve a win, all right?” 

For a moment, the expression on Wonpil’s face as he looked at Younghyun was unnervingly opaque. Then he smiled. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

“It’s nothing,” Younghyun replied, feeling his face grow warm. Now that they weren’t arguing about Wonpil’s camera test or being interrupted by Announcer Cha’s nighttime routines, there was a strange tranquility about the night room floor and this little pantry within it. 

“I was wondering, actually,” said Wonpil. “Why did you sit down to drink with me that day?” 

It was a question that Younghyun had found himself thinking about, of late. As with many things, he couldn’t have explained it back then. Now, however, with Wonpil perched on a plastic pantry stool before him, his hair a mess of curls not yet tamed into camera-readiness, the answer seemed obvious and simple — something he’d known all along, even if he wasn’t sure if Wonpil was ready to hear it. 

So he settled for the other, equally honest answer. “You seemed kind, and like maybe you weren’t going to judge me.”

“The way I saw it,” said Wonpil. “That whole thing with the brisket? It was a dick move, but you reported it fairly.”

Younghyun shrugged. “Maybe I should just have let Park Jinyoung take the story.” 

Wonpil laughed. “He’d have had a field day with it, so you probably made the right choice.” 

“He would have,” Younghyun agreed. “All that fucking shaky cam.”

“Very dramatic,” said Wonpil, with a little smile. 

And now that they were having this conspiratorial moment, this little look into the past, Younghyun felt somehow emboldened to ask the other question he’d been thinking about. 

“Why did you invite me up for tea?”

Wonpil shrugged a shrug that Younghyun had come to be exceedingly fond of. “You seemed kind,” he said simply. “I was lonely. You seemed like you might enjoy some tea.” 

“I did in fact enjoy the tea that you did not in fact have,” Younghyun said, as dryly as he could muster even though his heart had started pounding, annoyingly, in his chest. 

“Well,” said Wonpil with the same blandly mischievous smile he’d had when he’d disclosed to Younghyun the patent lack of actual tea in his house. “I’m glad you did. I quite liked it myself.”

For a moment they just looked at each other, in that fluorescent-lit pantry, Younghyun still standing while Wonpil sat, a rickety table and that oriental raisin carton between them. He wondered, now, at the casual ease with which he’d accepted Wonpil’s invitation before; how he could not have anticipated the strength of this strange magnetic pull between them now. He knew, and yet he wondered, what Wonpil would feel like under his hands if he just crossed that short distance and knocked that stupid carton away; if he just — 

They were interrupted, just then, by the forceful and persistent sound of Wonpil’s pansori alarm. 

Younghyun jumped. Wonpil reached for his phone to turn off the sound. 

“I suppose —” Wonpil began.

“You should sleep —” said Younghyun at the same time. 

“Yes,” said Wonpil, “I should.” 

“Well, I'll just… go look into that dolphin thing, I guess,” said Younghyun.

“Yes,” said Wonpil. “Very distressing, that dolphin thing.”

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but Younghyun thought he could almost hear a note of reluctance in Wonpil's voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey it's October! In the course of expanding on my outline, I realised that this story is probably going to be 3 chapters, so the chapter count has been increased accordingly. 
> 
> Thank you again to forochel for the encouraging comments and yelling as I coaxed this chapter out of its outline and threw in a bunch of extra stuff (including Announcer Cha), and to everyone who commented on the first chapter! <333333


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Will Wonpil make it to his auditions? How many candles on a birthday cake is enough candles?

Younghyun’s journey from the night rooms back to his cubicle in the newsroom was interrupted by an encounter with PD Oh and Head Announcer Kim. They were bearing a cake that could only be described as being ‘ _on fire_ ’, in light of the number of candles erupting from its surface.

“Are you both considering a second career in arson?” asked Younghyun. 

“Come over here and carry this, my arms are about to fall off,” PD Oh snapped.

“You can sing the birthday song too, while you’re here,” Head Announcer Kim added, grabbing Younghyun’s elbow and steering him to receive the cake from PD Oh.

“Oh,” said Younghyun, staggering under its weight. “So this is a birthday cake and not a diorama of a forest fire?

“Ha ha,” said PD Oh, while Head Announcer Kim just swatted the back of Younghyun’s head. 

It was a miracle this hadn’t set off any fire alarms. “Who’s the birthday baby?” asked Younghyun.

“Can’t you tell based on the number of candles, Reporter Kang?” asked PD Oh linking an elbow around Younghyun’s free one so that he and Head Announcer Kim could frogmarch Younghyun into the newsroom, straight down the corridor and right up to the cubicle belonging to one Reporter Kim. 

“What in bloody hello,” said Reporter Kim, upon catching sight of the three of them. 

Younghyun hoped that perhaps (a) the blaze of candles and (b) the alarming amount of smoke they were emitting would distract Reporter Kim from the fact that he was the one carrying this flaming two-kilogram monstrosity.

“You didn’t think we were about to forget your birthday, did you?” said PD Oh, with the cautious friendliness of a trainee zookeeper feeding the big cats for the first time. 

“After all, you’re turning a hundred,” Head Announcer Kim added, but there was none of her usual venom in the way she said it. 

“Speak for yourself,” said Reporter Kim, but she didn’t look particularly upset, either. “Did it not occur to any of you that you could have just used five large candles?” 

“I had nothing to do with this,” said Younghyun, in an attempt at self-preservation. “If it were left to me, I’d have gotten thirty-five candles at most.”

Reporter Kim _tsk_ ed while Head Announcer Kim gave him an extravagant eye-roll. 

“If only your uncle were half as charming,” said Head Announcer Kim.

“He had his moments,” said Reporter Kim. 

“ _Reporter Kang_ ,” PD Oh interjected, “is here to sing the birthday song.”

“Quick,” snapped Reporter Kim, “take a photo of us for Ppal-gang!” 

“Who, me?” asked PD Oh.

“Yes, you!” said both Aunts Kim. 

What ensued was a protracted photoshoot in which both Aunts Kim attempted to get their optimal angles while Younghyun sagged under the weight of the flaming cake, swiftly followed by the discovery that all of the photos PD Oh had taken were blurry save for one in which Reporter Kim’s eyes had been closed. 

Younghyun had then been made to hand over cake-holding duties to Reporter Kim herself (“It’s not heavy at all,” she had remarked. “That’s because you spend all your free time flinging those kettle-balls around,” Head Announcer Kim had told her) in order to take better, less blurry photographs, by which point half the candles had melted by at least a third of their length in some patches. 

And _then_ there had been the race to make a wish and blow out the candle.

“I wish for Ppal-gang to be happy and healthy and that she will do well on her college entrance exams,” said Reporter Kim.

“Make some wishes for yourself!” said Head Announcer Kim. 

“Don’t police my wishes!” Reporter Kim retorted, preparing to blow out the candles. 

“Hang on, stop!” said Head Announcer Kim. 

“What!” cried Reporter Kim.

“Make a wish for yourself!” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Reporter Kim. 

“There are more than enough candles, by Reporter Kang’s dubious math,” said PD Oh.

“Oh all right,” said Reporter Kim. “I wish to finally take that holiday to Borocay.”

“That was going to be _my_ wish,” said Head Announcer Kim. 

Quietly, Younghyun wondered how it was that his Aunts Kim had the exact same taste in beach vacation destinations. 

“I wish for some peace and quiet,” said PD Oh.

“ _You’re_ one to talk,” said Reporter Kim.

“Can I go now?” asked Younghyun miserably, not quite sure now if the smell of burning plastic was from the low-quality happy birthday cake topper nestled among the melting candles, or his singed lanyard strap.

“We haven’t blown out the candles,” said Head Announcer Kim, whose kettlebell training had indeed made her a strong cake-bearer. “Quick, Younghyun-ah. Make a wish.”

“You know this isn’t how birthday wishes work, right?” 

“Hurry up,” cried Reporter Kim. “We’ve all wished!”

“Ugh,” said Younghyun, attempting Ppal-gang’s emphatic disdain. “All right. I wish this Friday’s announcer test will be a fair one.” 

There was a pause.

“If you were going to go with a work-related wish,” said PD Oh, “I’d have thought you’d wish for the 9pm anchor position.”

“Take more photos!” barked Reporter Kim, before single-mouthedly blowing out fifty-odd candles. 

Later, when they’d taken enough photographs to for Ppal-gang to actually reply on the awkward extended family chat (creatively named ‘Kang Family Chat’; Ppal-gang had replied with ‘ _quit spamming us with your party pics_ ’, which all of them still counted as win since she usually just ignored their collective Katalk existence), they’d sat down for cake and the secret stash of alcohol Reporter Kim kept under her desk in an old oriental raisin carton. 

“So I hear you’re actually giving Announcer Baek some decent tips,” said Announcer Kim, carefully scraping wax from the surface of her slice of cake.

“I thought it was _your_ job to train the announcers,” said Reporter Kim. 

Announcer Kim gave her an extravagant eyeroll. “Look, if they listened to half the advice I gave them, there wouldn’t even be any competition with the reporters.” 

“The number of times I tell them not to drink ice Americanos before broadcast…” said PD Oh, shaking his head.

“You have to admit though,” said Reporter Kim, “that reporters have an edge because we have field experience.”

“Oh, not that again,” groaned Announcer Kim. 

“Look,” said Reporter Kim, “Have you ever seen Younghyunie get flustered on air? He’s unflappable regardless of the circumstances.”

“Is this strawberry safe to eat?” asked Younghyun, poking at its slightly charred surface. 

“Well, there was the time both of you strode on during the commercial break to toss coffee in his face —” PD Oh began, only be glared into silence by both Aunts Kim. 

“Don’t eat that, Younghyun-ah,” said Announcer Kim, just as Younghyun was about to pop the burnt strawberry into his mouth.

“In any case,” said PD Oh hurriedly, “we’ll soon have Reporter Kang in the studio, where I’m sure he will continue to be as unflappable as before.” 

“Indeed,” said Announcer Kim, holding out her glass for PD Oh to top up. “And for the 9pm news, too, if you and Announcer Baek keep things up.”

“What will you do once you’re no longer running around investigating manatee murders,” said Reporter Kim, shaking her head. “You’re going to be so bored in the studio.”

“It’s dolphins, actually, and I think I’ll be just fine,” said Younghyun, slightly less convincingly than he intended. “Speaking of which, I have to go check on them,” he added, before making a hasty exit. 

\---

“Look at this,” said Younghyun the next morning, ambushing PD Oh outside the men’s toilet that was furthest away from the newsroom, which also happened to be the only spot on their floor where one could connect to the PokeStop that was the MBC building opposite. 

PD Oh jumped. “Good grief,” he snapped. “Give a man some warning, will you?” 

“I thought I heard you telling Reporter Kim you’ve quit,” said Younghyun, directing a pointed look towards the Pokemon Go map on PD Oh’s phone screen. 

“What that woman doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” PD Oh replied, then glanced around as if expecting her to suddenly appear. He shoved his phone into his jacket pocket and turned to head down the corridor. “Did you not leave the office at all last night?”

“I told you I had to check on a lead,” said Younghyun, following after PD Oh shoving a folder at him. “Look what I found.”

“Dead dolphin,” said PD Oh, glancing at the picture. “Thought you said it was from old age.”

“That was the first one,” Younghyun replied. “But there are several others that actually died because of the oil spill.” He flipped the page. “Look at this.”

PD Oh snatched the folder from Younghyun’s hands to examine it. “That’s… _very bad news_ ,” he said, in the same tones as someone who’d just come across a limited-time Legendary Pokemon. 

“So I’ll be doing this story,” said Younghyun. 

“That’ll be one of the two sexy stories I promised,” said PD Oh.

“You really need to rethink your definition of sexy.”

“I will gladly have that discussion,” said PD Oh, “after you bring me some gut-punching stuff from… where is this?” 

“Busan.”

“Busan,” PD Oh repeated. “Time to do that thing where you stare searchingly into the camera —” 

“— so people know it’s a tragedy, yes, not an amateur here,” Younghyun finished. “I’ve wrangled a camera team from Busan HQ who will meet me there, but KBS’ Park Jinyoung will probably be on this soon —”

“— bloody Park Jinyoung —” growled PD Oh.

“So I took the liberty,” Younghyun continued, “of requesting the helicopter.” 

“Good man,” said PD Oh, waving Younghyun along. “Knock them dead!” 

“Not appropriate!” Younghyun called, hurrying towards the lift lobby.

He got there just in time to see Sungjin sloping out one of the lifts, looking hungover and clutching a pot of yoghurt that looked like it very much belonged to Younghyun. 

“Oh,” said Sungjin, pointing towards Younghyun’s folder. It must be some kind of occupational hazard, the way he never missed a thing. “It really was a dolphin thing. Jae and Dowoon seemed to think you were speaking metaphorically.”

“Did you sleep over at Jae’s?” asked Younghyun.

“Yeah,” said Sungjin. “How did you know?”

“That’s my yoghurt.” 

“Jae gave it to me,” Sungjin countered, taking a defiant spoonful of truly expensive greek-style fig yoghurt. Then he pointed at the television across from them. “Look, it’s Kim Wonpil.”

“Don’t try to change the subject —” Younghyun began, even as he turned towards the television, but he trailed off at the sight of Wonpil standing in front of a profusion of flowers, at what was very much _not_ the main newsroom. 

“ _— and our weather anchor Kim Wonpil is standing by at Coex Flower Field in Jamsil to give today’s report,_ ” Announcer Baek was saying in voiceover, _“but first, this morning’s headlines_ —”

“Why the fuck,” said Younghyun, “is he in _Jamsil_?”

\---

_It's the opening of the festival,_ read Wonpil’s reply a good ten minutes later, _all the stations are there_.

Younghyun fastened the helicopter seat belt and jammed the helmet-slash-headset onto his head before reaching for his phone again to type a response: _what about the camera test?!  
_  
There was a pause, which could have been because the studio had cut back to Wonpil for one of those ‘ _I’m still standing by here_ ’ updates before every commercial break.

Then: _dont worry hyung, i have a plan_. 

_WHAT_ , Younghyun replied, while the two helicopter pilots did whatever it was they usually did with those clipboards for safety, _COULD POSSIBLY BE THE PLAN?  
_  
_A bike delivery man is standing by to drive me to SBS_ , came Wonpil’s reply. 

For a few stunned seconds, Younghyun just stared at his phone.

“That,” said Younghyun out loud, “is the worst plan.”

“Ready to go, Reporter Kang?” asked the helicopter copilot, who was incidentally also the one who’d accompanied Younghyun on his ‘illegal climbers of high rise buildings’ story back when he’d first started at SBS. 

Maybe Wonpil’s plan would work, thought Younghyun. Maybe, somehow, the abysmal morning traffic would magically clear at the exact moment that one Kim Wonpil, weather anchor and announcer hopeful, started making his way back to the SBS headquarters.

"How long does it take to drive from Jamsil to SBS?" he asked the pilots.

“At this time, considering the traffic?” said the co-pilot. “Half an hour, if you’re lucky.”

Younghyun looked down at his phone; at Wonpil’s desperately optimistic message, and made a decision.

Wonpil was making the hundred-metre dash for the delivery man's bike when the helicopter landed on a safe patch of field that wasn't covered in flowers. So intent was he in running towards the bike that he didn’t even pause to look round.

Younghyun unbuckled himself and clambered out of the helicopter in record time, intercepting Wonpil just as he was climbing onto the back of the bike.

“Come with me,” said Younghyun, seizing Wonpil’s arm.

“Mister, that’s dangerous!” said the delivery man.

“What’s going on?” asked Wonpil. “Why are you here?”

“There's no time,” said Younghyun, tugging at Wonpil’s arm. “Look, we need to go.” 

“Am I still getting paid?” asked the delivery man, as Wonpil climbed back off the bike.

“Yes, here’s my name card,” said Younghyun, reaching into his pocket and pressing the name card into the delivery man’s hands. “Let’s go,” he said, to Wonpil, tugging him along towards the helicopter. 

“Wait,” called the delivery man, “this is a loyalty stamp card for a barbeque restaurant!” 

“So sorry about this!” shouted Wonpil, “you have my telephone number!” He turned to Younghyun. “How do you have a _SBS helicopter_?”

“The dead Busan dolphins,” said Younghyun, flinging open one of the passenger doors and helping Wonpil up into the helicopter. 

“Wasn’t it old age?” Wonpil asked, when Younghyun had run round to the other side of the helicopter and climbed in. 

“They found more that died because of the oil spill,” said Younghyun, shutting the door and belting up. 

“Oh, that’s terrible—” said Wonpil in dismay, before the rest of his words were drowned out by the sound of the helicopter engine starting up. Then his eyes widened. He reached for the intercom headset and shoved it onto his head. 

“Shouldn’t you be in _Busan_?!”

“I’m working on it!” Younghyun yelled back, before reaching for his own headset. 

“Oh my goodness,” Wonpil said queasily as they took off. He looked ill under his makeup. 

“Listen,” said Younghyun. “You're going to make it there on time, and you're going to do great. Remember all the things I told you about looking at the camera, and memorising the first and last lines.” He paused. “And also maybe don’t tell anyone you came by helicopter.”

“Oh my goodness,” Wonpil repeated, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

In an entirely impulsive moment, Younghyun grabbed his hand. “Think about the years you’ve put in,” he said. “The hours and hours of broadcast experience, rain or shine. A good part of this whole thing is the impression you make in the first five seconds — how you look, how your voice sounds. And let me just say this: there’s no one else who lights up on broadcast quite like you.” 

“Oh... goodness,” said Wonpil faintly, his eyes blinking open to look at Younghyun. His expression was not one of panic but of slightly stunned amazement. “Hyung, you—”

“We’re here!” interrupted the helicopter pilot cheerily. 

True enough, they were making their approach towards the helicopter landing pad on the roof of the SBS annex. 

“Do the greeting you do when it’s an overcast day,” said Younghyun. “It makes you seem more reliable to viewers.”

Wonpil stared at Younghyun. 

“Try it,” said Younghyun urgently. 

“ _Hello_ ,” Wonpil said.

“That’s for sunny days,” Younghyun replied. “Try again.”

“ _Hello_ ,” Wonpil repeated, deeper this time. 

“Even lower, so it sounds reliable,” said Younghyun.

“ _Hello_ ,” Wonpil tried again.

“There you go,” said Younghyun, grinning at him. “Remember that pitch.”

With a bump, they landed on the SBS roof.

"Thank you," said Wonpil, almost inaudible over the headset. 

"Thank me later," Younghyun replied. "Go on."

"You're still, uh," said Wonpil, glancing down towards his hand, which Younghyun was still holding. 

"Oh," said Younghyun, feeling himself going visibly red as he let go of Wonpil. 

For a moment Wonpil paused and gave Younghyun a particularly intent look. To Younghyun’s hysterical mind, it felt a little like Wonpil was about to lean in and kiss him. 

Then Wonpil's phone went off, and he yelped a little on seeing the time reflected on the screen. (“You'd better be in the studio!!!' read the alarm name).

"Go," said Younghyun, as Wonpil stumbled out of the helicopter..

"Any other stops?" asked the pilot. "Also you _are_ paying for the extra fuel costs, aren't you?”

“And the landing fine at Jamsil,” added the copilot. 

“Yeah, yeah, I said I’d take care of it,” Youngyhun replied. “Now let’s get that oil spill story,” he added, feeling something light in his chest as they took to the sky again.

Younghyun looked out of the window. Down below, Wonpil was dashing across the roof towards the staircase entrance. 

“On a scale of one to ten,” said Younghyun after a pause, “how fucked do you think I’m going to be?” 

\---

“So let me get this straight,” said PD Oh. “You redirected a very expensive news helicopter because…”

“I really needed the restroom,” said Younghyun. 

“You—” PD Oh paused, then gave a long frustrated sigh. “You really needed the restroom.”

“Yes,” said Younghyun firmly.

Editor Hwang, who had been showing Younghyun the rough cut of the dolphin story when PD Oh had burst into the tiny editing room, now rose cautiously from his seat in a second attempt to leave. 

“I got the footage, in any case,” said Younghyun. “Editor Hwang, show him.”

Editor Hwang sank back down helplessly. “Uh — okay...” he mumbled, reaching towards the keyboard.

They were interrupted at this moment by Reporter Kim flinging open the door of the editing booth. 

“What’s this I hear a helicopter detour?” she demanded, while Editor Hwang scooted backwards into a corner to avoid being whacked in the head by the clipboard she was brandishing. “And for a toilet break?”

“ _I got the footage_ ,” Younghyun gritted out.

“I’m sure you bloody did,” said Reporter Kim. “Don’t you understand this is about more than whether you got the footage? This is disciplinary action you’re looking at. Minimally a suspension.”

“But if you have a good reason...” PD Oh interjected.

They both looked expectantly at Younghyun. Editor Hwang, in the meantime, seemed to be trying to send some kind of SOS signal to the similarly terrified editors in the neighbouring rooms. 

Younghyun took a deep breath. Then: “I really, really needed the restroom.”

PD Oh threw up his hands. 

“Young man,” said Reporter Kim, “You do know that if you’re suspended, you're not going to be able to come in for the 9pm anchor test.”

Younghyun glanced sharply at her, feeling his heart drop. He’d known of course, on some theoretical level at least, that there would be serious consequences accompanying that decision to turn the helicopter around. The two pilots had already done their part by not disclosing the fact that Wonpil had been involved at all, but there was still no accounting for why Younghyun had requested the reroute back to headquarters 

“Yeah, now you’re taking this seriously,” said PD Oh, waving his long-empty packet of oriental raisin at Younghyun. “Just give me one good reason why you asked the pilots to make that detour, Kang. Something, anything I can give to management.” 

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision — how could he? Wonpil had made it to the camera test on time despite all the obstacles in his way. By Jae’s account, he’d done pretty well for himself, not losing his composure even at the part where they’d dropped a rubber snake onto the news desk to test each auditionee while they were giving a report about a dozen vipers lost mid-transport to Seoul Grand Park Zoo. 

Apparently, Wonpil had simply made a quip about how this must be the last missing snake.

“The truth is,” said Younghyun.

“Yes?” snapped Reporter Kim.

“I really, really _really_ needed the restroom.” 

PD Oh threw his oriental raisin packet so violently into the bin that it bounced out and landed on Editor Hwang’s shoe. 

The editing room door opened again. “Kang Younghyun —” Announcer Kim began, only to pause when she caught sight of PD Oh and Reporter Kim looming over Younghyun, while Editor Hwang cowered in terror. 

“I’m afraid he’s a lost cause,” Reporter Kim told her, before stalking out of the editor room. 

PD Oh followed, shaking his head in bewildered disappointment. 

“Can I please go now?” Editor Hwang asked, then sprang out of his chair to make a hasty escape without waiting for an answer. 

Announcer Kim folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose you had your reasons.” 

“I suppose you’re here to yell at me about them,” said Younghyun. 

“I assume you’ve received the requisite amount of yelling,” replied Announcer Kim. “So I’m just going to say that you should apologise to Announcer Baek.” 

_Fuck_ , thought Younghyun, who was ashamed to admit that he’d not even considered how this might affect his audition partner. “I’m very, very sorry.” 

Announcer Kim nodded. “You can start by telling her that,” she said. “But at the same time, I’m sure she’ll land on her feet.” 

“I’m sorry,” Younghyun said again.

“Next time,” said Announcer Kim, “maybe wait till you reach Busan before downing all that coffee.” 

With a dry little smile and nod, she turned and strode out of the editing room, the door swinging shut behind her.

The moment he was sure she’d left, Younghyun sank into Editor Hwang’s chair. 

“Well, fuck,” he said, burying his face into his hands. 

Any attempt at wallowing in self-pity was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the much-abused editing room door. 

Younghyun looked up to see Jae pressing his face against the already-smudged glass. 

“Come on you idiot,” said Jae, pulling open the door. “Let’s get drinks. Everyone’s waiting.” 

Everyone turned out to be Sungjin and Dowoon, who were at the lobby trapped in small talk with one of the green juice sales rep ahjummas. While Jae sidled over to extricate them from a lecture about the evils of ‘men’s stress’, Younghyun felt a tug at his elbow.

It was Wonpil. 

He looked exhausted, and decidedly more rumpled in his suit than he’d been earlier that morning. Younghyun probably looked worse — he definitely felt worse, in any case. 

“Hyung,” said Wonpil, and the tentative little smile he gave Younghyun felt just enough to make up for everything. 

“You’re still here?” asked Younghyun. “I thought you’d have gone home after the tests were done.”

“I, uh—” Wonpil began.

“Wonpilie-hyung!” called Dowoon, shuffling over to them. Behind him, Sungjin was bidding farewell to the green juice ahjumma by signing the back of her oriental raisin order sheet. 

“Weather Anchor Kim,” said Jae, by way of greeting. “Or perhaps it’ll be Announcer Kim soon, judging by how well today went.”

“Well,” said Wonpil, “let’s not count our chickens, and so on.” 

“Quite right,” said Jae, “especially when there are drinks to be had.” He turned to Sungjin, who had just walked over to them. “Are you now a proud owner of one of those vile juice subscriptions?” 

“I think that lady might be caught up in some kind of Ponzi scheme,” said Sungjin with a frown. 

“Join us?” Jae said to Wonpil. “It’s shaping up to be a night of juice sales conspiracy theories, but the rest of us will probably be decent company. I’ll even make Younghyun yield his living room floor space if everyone ends up crashing at mine.” 

Younghyun glanced over at Wonpil.

“Sure,” said Wonpil, “but I’d like dibs on the couch instead.”

\---

On the night of the Brisketgate debacle, Jae had found Younghyun hiding in one of the editing rooms, blankly rewatching the brisket report footage while working through a carton of expired ginger carrot green juice (this had been in the days before the oriental raisin rebranding). 

“You’re the saddest fuck in the building,” Jae had told Younghyun mercilessly, before shutting off the monitors and hauling Younghyun, coffee-stained shirt and all, out for drinks. They’d been joined by Sungjin and Dowoon who, on account of being three months deep into a missing persons cold case from 1994, had been blissfully unaware of Younghyun’s tribulations. 

Younghyun had proceeded to drink himself into oblivion while Jae dissected the latest in broadcasting gossip (politely omitting any mention of the unfolding brisket-related drama). The next morning, he’d regained consciousness on the floor of a bedroom that had turned out to be Dowoon’s, sandwiched between Dowoon and Dowoon’s literal roommate.

Nothing much had changed three years on, it seemed, apart from the fact that now their consolation drinking party also included Wonpil, who kept giving Younghyun worried glances each time he took another shot. 

“Okay but you need to spill,” said Jae, as they were waiting for a second serving of spicy fish stew to come to a boil. “I _know_ you didn’t just turn that helicopter around because you wanted to visit the restroom. This is a suspension we’re talking about.”

Younghyun shook his head. “It was exactly that.” 

“Is it true that drinking too much coffee makes your bladder weak?” asked Dowoon.

“What’s all this about helicopters?” asked Sungjin, through a mouthful of mushrooms.

“‘Helicoptergate’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it,’ Jae mused, resting his chin on his hand. 

“There’s also ‘coptergate’,” Dowoon offered. 

“Is nobody going to fill me in on what Younghyun’s done this time?” asked Sungjin. 

Younghyun glanced over at Wonpil, who was now giving him a sharp look. 

Later, when they’d left the spicy fish stew place to get coffees (to sober up sufficiently for round two, according to Jae), Wonpil pulled Younghyun aside. 

“We’ll get you your coffees,” said Dowoon, apparently having received some sort of silently complicated signal from Wonpil for them to go on ahead. 

“What—” Jae began, only to get ushered into the coffee shop by Dowoon, Sungjin trailing obliviously behind them. 

Once the others had disappeared through the doors, Wonpil turned to Younghyun. 

“Is it true you're facing a suspension because you redirected the helicopter to Jamsil?” His expression was calm but his tone was taut, almost angry. 

“Yes,” said Younghyun, shuffling his feet. He put his hands into his pockets for a second before taking them out.

“Fuck,” said Wonpil. “I never asked you to do that.”

“No,” Younghyun agreed, still staring at the ground. “You didn’t.”

“Then why would you—”

“Why wouldn't I?” asked Younghyun, jerking his head up to look at Wonpil. “If I could give you the three minutes you needed to get to that audition—” 

“Because it's ridiculous!” Wonpil burst out. “It’s not fair; you’re going to miss the 9pm anchor position because of me —”

“Do I even want the 9pm anchor position,” mumbled Younghyun.

“Don’t make this about me,” said Wonpil dangerously. “Don’t you dare.”

“No, of course not,” said Younghyun, thinking back to the way he’d felt after the _jimjilbang_ gambling den story, that grim satisfaction he’d felt even as he’d sat in the emergency room negotiating with a doctor who looked strangely like Lee Dong Wook to release him in time to make the evening news. How every time someone talked about him getting the 9pm position he’d pause and find that for all his bluster, he hadn’t really even imagined what it would be like. 

“No,” Younghyun told Wonpil, “this is about me. What the hell do I want, even? I spent three years treading water telling myself I was better than whatever I was doing, that once I got back I'd get that anchor position — but why? Just to prove that I could?” He paused, and laughed. “I don’t even fucking _like_ the studio.”

“Are you just saying that,” asked Wonpil in a cautious voice.

Younghyun shook his head. “No,” he said. “Remember what you asked me at that hangover soup place?”

“You mean that time you chased me down the street in an inside-out t-shirt?” asked Wonpil dryly. 

“Yes, that time, although I don’t recall being in any condition to do any chasing,” replied Younghyun. “You asked me whether I was aiming for the 9pm position just because everyone else wanted it. I said no, at the time, but. I think you were right.” 

“Oh my goodness,” said Wonpil. “Don't take career advice from _me_.”

“Too late,” said Younghyun, with a flippant little shrug.

The laugh that burst out of Wonpil must have been unintended, because he clapped his hands over his mouth immediately. 

“I don’t regret it,” said Younghyun mulishly.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” replied Wonpil, in a voice that was soft and wondering. “Why are you the way you are?” 

Younghyun felt himself abruptly go red, and ducked his head. “I seem to recall asking you the same thing.”

“Thank you,” said Wonpil, after a pause. “No matter what the outcome of the audition — I’m just grateful that I even got the chance.”

“Any time,” Younghyun replied. He frowned. “Well, maybe not _any_ time, maybe some of the time… give me a while to get back into PD Oh’s good books—”

Wonpil laughed, unreservedly this time. 

They were interrupted right then, however, by the now-familiar sound of Wonpil’s _pansori_ go to sleep alarm going off. 

“Oh, sorry,” said Wonpil, fumbling for his phone.

“What the hell is that?” asked Jae, spilling out through the doors with Sungjin and Dowoon in tow and coffees in hand. 

“It’s an intangible heritage of humanity, you heathen,” said Younghyun before Wonpil could reply. 

Jae waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “How about some _noraebang_?” 

\---

The dolphin oil spill story was broadcast the next day, narrowly beating Park Jinyoung’s coverage of it over at KBS. While Younghyun’s report had featured serious shots of the dolphin tragedy, both from the helicopter as well as on land, together with interviews with local fishermen and a marine biologist on the impact of the oil spill, Park Jinyoung’s coverage had featured at least two shots of him just striding along the beach at sunset that had gone on a little too long, as well as a lingering closeup of his face as he talked about the “serious ecological impact”. 

“Do you think he makes the editors cut the footage like that on purpose,” wondered Jae, who had insisted on watching the clip at Younghyun’s cubicle.

“Do you think you could play this on your own computer,” said Younghyun, over the sound of Jae crunching water crackers by his ear. 

“For your own good, no,” said Jae. “You need to study your competition.”

Younghyun scoffed. “Park Jinyoung isn’t my competition—”

“Park Jinyoung certainly didn’t redirect a helicopter just because he’d had one too many coffees that morning,” said Announcer Baek, appearing suddenly in front of Younghyun’s cubicle. “I think you’re quite unparalleled in that respect, Reporter Kang.” 

Her Chanel jacket this morning was a dignified fuschia. She was also carrying two cups of coffee, which Younghyun felt irrationally nervous about. 

“Ah, Announcer Baek,” said Younghyun, while Jae reached protectively for his water cracker box. 

Announcer Baek quirked a quizzical and well-defined eyebrow at Jae, before turning to Younghyun. “Roof?” 

There was nobody on the roof except two vaguely familiar-looking interns who scuttled away when they saw Announcer Baek and Younghyun. 

“This is for you,” said Announcer Baek, handing Younghyun one of the two cups she was holding with not an inconsiderable amount of irony. “I heard it’s probably going to be a suspension. There goes the anchor audition, I suppose."

Younghyun nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.” 

Announcer Baek shrugged. “We made a great team,” she said. “But no hard feelings.” 

“You can be mad at me for as long as you like,” said Younghyun sincerely. 

“Ha,” said Announcer Baek. “That would require far too much effort, especially after spending a good part of today persuading Announcer Choi that it would be a good idea to cut short his posting as the London correspondent and get back to anchoring.” 

“Ah,” Younghyun replied. “Head Announcer Kim did say she thought you’d land on your feet.” 

“Did she?” asked Announcer Baek, with a little smile, before turning and heading back towards the staircase entrance. 

“Thanks for the coffee,” Younghyun called after her. 

He stayed up there on the roof for a few more minutes, nursing his coffee while staring out at the traffic below. He had come up here often, in the days immediately following Brisketgate, because it had been the easiest way to avoid both his aunts and a beleaguered PD Oh. Back then, he’d paced the roof smoking cigarettes he didn’t even like, frantically thinking through all the possible ways he’d be able to work things out. 

Now he just enjoyed the breeze while idly recalling Wonpil’s weather forecast this morning, in which he’d sweetly informed viewers that it was perfect weather to spend with someone you liked. 

“But don’t skip school or work,” he’d warned, with a little wink, and Younghyun had laughed out loud in an elevator full of people.

“I suppose the fact that you’re smiling means I probably shouldn’t be worried,” said someone. Younghyun knew before turning around that it was Wonpil. 

“The water cracker-eating gremlin in your cubicle told me you were up here,” said Wonpil by way of explanation. “Seemed to think Announcer Baek might, I quote, ‘rip you a new one’.”

“Well, as you can see,” Younghyun replied, “I’m very much intact.” 

“I’m relieved,” said Wonpil, with a smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. 

“I was just thinking about how the viewers are going to miss your weather reports,” said Younghyun. “I suppose they’d have to get used to a more serious you.”

Wonpil frowned. “I’m very serious about the weather.” 

“Yes, of course,” said Younghyun, “but I highly doubt PD Oh will abide you winking at the camera from the newsdesk.”

“As long as I wink directly into camera number 2,” Wonpil deadpanned. 

“I don’t think your viewers would survive that,” Younghyun told him. 

“You give me far too much credit,” said Wonpil, before giving Younghyun a little wink, at which point Younghyun discovered that it was quite something else, being subject to the full force of Wonpil’s weather forecasting charms in the flesh.

“Oh,” said Younghyun, and quite naturally almost dropped his coffee. 

“Goodness,” said Wonpil, immediately flustered, moving to remove the coffee from Younghyun’s hands and place it safely on the ledge. 

Younghyun laughed sheepishly. “Now do you believe me?” 

“It’s a little difficult, Reporter Kang,” said Wonpil teasingly, “with only a sample size of one.” 

“You’ll just have to take my word for it, then,” Younghyun muttered, stuffing his hands into his pocket. “This viewer will definitely be writing a sternly worded letter.” 

“That’s a pity,” said Wonpil, “because I was wondering if this viewer might be able to survive _this_.”

He stepped in close to Younghyun, and kissed him. 

“Oh,” said Younghyun, when Wonpil pulled away. 

“Oh?” Wonpil repeated. 

“Do that again and I promise I’ll withdraw all my letters,” said Younghyun. 

“I’ll give you something to complain about,” Wonpil replied, and kissed Younghyun again. 

\---

The annual SBS announcer recruitment results were released on the same day Younghyun received the letter informing him that he would be suspended for a month. 

Wonpil found Younghyun at the American-style diner near the SBS building, in the middle of a bellowed video call with his parents about how much birthday money to give Ppal-gang on their behalf. 

“How on earth would I know how much Reporter Kim is giving Ppal-gang?” asked Younghyun, glancing up when Wonpil came over to the table. 

_It’s okay_ , Wonpil mouthed, sitting down across from Younghyun.

“— stop calling her ‘Reporter Kim’ as if you’re not related —” his mother was saying.

“By marriage, but now they’re _divorced_ and it's weird because we work together, we’ve talked about this,” Younghyun interrupted. “Uh, why don’t you just text me how much once you’ve decided.” He paused. “Or I could buy her shoes. Apparently high schoolers like shoes, these days.”

Wonpil gave a silent laugh, and busied himself with studying the menu.

“As if you’d have time to go shoe shopping for your cousin on our behalf,” said Younghyun’s mother. Younghyun’s father, on the other hand, appeared to be watching golf, judging by the look of pleasant concentration he was directing towards something just beyond the phone camera.

Perhaps, Younghyun thought, this was not the best time to inform his parents that he’d have plenty of time in the coming month on account of his suspension. 

“Look, I’ve got to go,” he said hurriedly. “Text me, all right?” 

“Eat your multivitamins,” said his mother by way of goodbye, before hanging up with no further preamble. 

“Sorry about that,” said Younghyun, putting away his phone. “I assume you’re here to cheer me up.” 

Wonpil looked up from the menu. Earlier that morning, he’d given the weather report from the top of Namsan Tower, while making some terrible pun about locks and beaming prettily at the camera in a way that had made Younghyun’s stomach do an embarrassing sort of flip-flop. He’d since changed out of the suit he’d been in and was once again wearing the terrible rustling SBS corporate zip-up jacket without a single trace of irony. He’d clearly tried to roll up the sleeves but one of them had unrolled and was now flopping open over his narrow wrist. 

It was strangely attractive. Younghyun felt overcome. 

“You don’t look particularly sad for someone who’s just had a month's suspension,” said Wonpil, giving Younghyun a wry look. 

“Well,” said Younghyun, “I’ve just received a bit of good news, actually.”

“Oh really?” said Wonpil, setting down the menu. 

“A friend of mine just got made an announcer,” said Younghyun. 

“Oh,” said Wonpil, a smile playing on his lips. “Just a friend?”

“Well, I’m open to discussion if he’d like to be something else.”

“I don’t know about him,” said Wonpil, “but I certainly wouldn’t mind.” 

Jae, who had been sitting at the next table with Editor Hwang this entire time, pretended to barf into his fries. 

“I thought I would be happy for the two of you but it turns out that I hate it,” said Jae, while Editor Hwang nervously ate a barbeque rib. 

“He’s just saying that,” Younghyun told Editor Hwang. “Thank you for your hard work.”

“How dare you turn a lunch treat into a date,” said Jae.

“I don’t recall inviting you,” said Younghyun pointedly.

“Now, now,” said Wonpil, before wandering off serenely in search of water. 

Later, after they’d deposited Editor Hwang back in the office and Younghyun had finished packing whatever he’d need from his desk (which turned out to be very little), Wonpil and Younghyun found themselves standing at the very same entrance where Wonpil had once lent Younghyun his Pororo-stickered umbrella. (Jae had fled their company the moment they’d returned to the building, claiming he had a meeting about ‘how to light the studio so that everyone’s pores look smaller’.)

Younghyun remembered going down to the weather anchors’ office to return the umbrella, back then. Wonpil hadn’t been in, and Younghyun had instead come across a group of his colleagues who were huddled in a corner snacking on raisins. 

“Think he’ll jump ship the first chance he gets?” one of the senior weather anchors had asked. 

“Park Jinyoung did,” the 12pm weather anchor had said darkly. 

“That’s different,” someone else had countered, “Announcer Park was _actually_ an announcer.”

Younghyun had cleared his throat, then, and they’d all scattered while Younghyun had looked for Wonpil’s cubicle, which had turned out to be the smallest one; squashed between a filing cabinet and the shredder. 

He remembered looking at Wonpil’s cubicle and thinking that it didn’t look like the desk of someone who was making imminent plans to search for greener pastures. Instead, it had been covered with everything from broadcast guidelines to a year’s worth of the Korean Meteorological Administration’s national monthly climate reviews. Lying open and heavily bookmarked on top of this had been the Forecast Bureau’s handbook. And amidst the mess, Wonpil had stuck a post-it onto the bottom of his computer monitor, which read, in his own precise handwriting, _you can do it, Kim Wonpil!_

“Hyung,” Wonpil said now, with a gentle nudge.

“Sorry,” said Younghyun, blinking. He readjusted his grip on the plastic bag of things he was holding (including his off-brand Thera Cane massager which he knew PD Oh had been coveting). “What were you saying?” 

“I asked what you felt like for dinner,” Wonpil replied patiently. 

Younghyun looked over at him and wondered a little at how hard he must have worked, these past years. He was immensely glad, all of a sudden, to have been allowed to be privy to at least part of this; that it was possible to feel so ridiculously proud of Wonpil. 

“You’re getting that blank happy look again,” said Wonpil, waving a hand in front of Younghyun’s face. 

“Oh, Announcer Kim,” said Younghyun, “buy me samgyeopsal and drinks with your staff discount.”

“I haven’t got my lanyard yet,” said Wonpil, sounding pleased nonetheless. 

“Pity,” said Younghyun, beaming so hard at Wonpil that he was sure somewhere, Jae had just buried his face in his hands without knowing exactly why. 

“How about some tea instead?” asked Wonpil after a pause, and smiled a sly little smile.

“Ah, sober living,” said Younghyun. He reached for Wonpil’s hand and took it. “I'd like that very much.” 

\---

**Epilogue**

Younghyun shuffled out of Wonpil’s bedroom one Saturday morning to find Park Jinyoung, formerly of SBS and lately of KBS, sitting in the four-square metre space that was Wonpil’s living room, eating fig yoghurt and watching JTBC Newsroom. 

“Oh, hello,” said Park Jinyoung, when he noticed Younghyun gaping at him. 

Then he paused, and gave Younghyun a reluctantly approving once-over, which was when Younghyun remembered that he was wearing only his boxers. 

“That’s my yoghurt,” said Younghyun in a feeble voice. Then he turned around and returned directly to the bedroom. 

After boggling for several seconds, Younghyun looked over at the snoring blanketed lump that was Wonpil, and poked it gently but persistently. 

“Mmghf,” said Wonpil from the depths.

“I have a question for you,” hissed Younghyun. “ _Wonpil_. Kim Wonpil.” 

Wonpil stirred and tried to roll away. But when it became clear that Younghyun would not cease his poking until he’d received an answer, Wonpil wriggled until his face was poking out. 

“Hyung,” he breathed, frowning in sleepy annoyance. “What. Is it.”

“Why is KBS Park Jinyoung in your living room?” Younghyun asked. 

“Oh,” said Wonpil, still not opening his eyes. “Jinyoungie’s here.”

“ _Jinyoungie_?”

“You know,” said Park Jinyoung later, when Wonpil had finally fully woken up and had left Younghyun to sit in flabbergasted silence opposite Jinyoung while he brushed his teeth, “it really shouldn’t be that surprising that Pilie and I are friends.”

“‘Pilie’,” Younghyun gritted out.

“Hyung,” said Wonpil, returning from the toilet, “your t-shirt is inside out again.”

While Younghyun went to a corner to turn his shirt outside in, he caught a glimpse of Wonpil and Park Jinyoung rapidly exchanging a series of meaningful but opaque looks. 

“We met at a JYP audition,” said Wonpil, helping himself to a pot of Younghyun’s fig yoghurt. “Neither of us got in, but we exchanged numbers.” 

“I see,” Younghyun said, and tried his best not to feel jealous of the hypothetical fun times of youth and friendship they must have shared. “I can’t imagine why you two didn’t get in.”

Park Jinyoung smiled one of his handsome, Park Jinyoung smiles. “You really _do_ do that thing where you say something complimentary and it’s impossible to tell if you’re being sarcastic.”

“Jinyoung _ie_ ,” said Wonpil, half chiding. 

“I don’t do that,” said Younghyun. He turned to Wonpil. “Do I?” 

Wonpil shrugged. “Well, when you first got back and started wishing me all the best —”

“— after three years of radio silence, mind you,” Park Jinyoung interjected.

“It was hard to tell at first,” Wonpil finished. 

“Ah,” said Younghyun.

“Ah,” Park Jinyoung repeated, with a sardonic little eyebrow quirk that nobody ever saw on camera. 

“Well, I mean,” said Wonpil, “I know _now_ that when you say something complimentary you definitely mean it.”

“Naturally we were suspicious,” said Park Jinyoung, in a way that made it ambiguous as to whether the ‘we’ included Wonpil or was simply a royal one. “But I suppose since you turned a helicopter around for him you’re probably all right.”

\---

“I’m glad you two finally met,” said Wonpil much later, after Jinyoung had left, apparently for a rendezvous with the Music Bank PD he was seeing. They were now out on the _pyeong-sang_ enjoying the last of al fresco dining before the weather turned colder. In front of them was the 24-hour _jimjilbang_ and behind them was Wonpil’s freshly-hung laundry fluttering gently in the wind. 

“I still can’t believe nobody knew about this,” said Younghyun, quietly deshelling Wonpil’s whelks while he wasn’t looking.

“It’s not exactly a secret,” Wonpil replied, munching on a perilla leaf, “but you do know how strongly everyone feels about Jinyoungie at the station. Even you, hyung.” 

Younghyun shrugged. “Well, if he’s friends with you, I’m willing to revise my opinion.” 

Wonpil smiled, and leaned over to curl his arms around Younghyun. “Thank you.” 

“I do have a question, though,” said Younghyun, after a moment of comfortable silence. “If you were friends with Park Jinyoung this whole time, why didn’t he teach you anything about the announcer auditions?” 

“Oh,” said Wonpil, sitting up a little but not letting go of Younghyun. “He did, actually. All the stuff about looking into the correct camera, and the vowels.”

“Oh,” said Younghyun, slightly stunned. “But if he did… When I was telling you all those things about the camera test...” 

“I did kind of know them,” Wonpil mumbled.

“You did —” Younghyun began. Then he paused, and buried his face into whelky fingers. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Hmm,” said Wonpil, considering this for a moment. Then he let go of Younghyun in order to pry Younghyun’s hands from his face. “I suppose it’s because I thought it was sweet that you cared so much.” 

“Oh goodness,” Younghyun whispered, still mortified. 

“I think that’s kind of when I really knew,” Wonpil continued. “I mean, that, and the fact that you were willing to sneak hot chocolate out of the reporters’ lounge for me.” 

“If I’d known all it would take was hot chocolate I wouldn’t have redirected that helicopter,” Younghyun muttered. 

“I’m glad you did,” murmured Wonpil, “because it was very romantic.” 

“Was it, now?” asked Younghyun.

“Yes,” said Wonpil. “Jinyoungie was very jealous.”

“Good,” said Younghyun, before pressing a whelky kiss to Wonpil’s cheek. 

And then the whelks became slightly neglected, because Wonpil wound his arms around Younghyun again to reel him in and kiss him more thoroughly, which made Younghyun reflect that as turning points went, that decision with the helicopter hadn’t been a bad one at all. 

**‘Flower Boy’ First Male Weather Anchor at SBS Inspires Slew of Content**

In SBS News’ latest open recruitment advertisement, a group of four men and women jazz-step enthusiastically across a rooftop to Hong Jinyoung’s _Love Battery_ , in one of the year’s most parodied and homaged viral TV commercials. Jo Jung-suk referenced it, flowery shirt and all, in a commercial for canned whelk. The popular idol group Itzy made a similar video for their recent fan meet. SBS _Inkigayo_ are now using the concept for their promotions for the end of year show.

Among the four featured in the original SBS spot was Kim Wonpil, who made waves several years ago by becoming the first male weather anchor on national broadcast television. Since then, several others have followed in his footsteps, but Kim still remains a surprise ratings draw for the station. The public has come to know him for his accurate and pleasant weather forecasts, and he frequently tops Naver search terms around festive periods due to his thoughtful thematic presentations (his yearly chuseok forecasts, for example, are always delivered dressed in hanbok).

Kim has since become the source of inspiration for various media, with one of the main characters of the popular webtoon _News Jazz!_ being a male weather anchor who learns the ropes and navigates relationships in an otherwise ladies-only department. In author Chung Serang’s latest anthology of short stories, a male weather anchor also featured in a metaphor-laden piece about several individuals discovering they have flowers growing from their heads. 

Finally, a drama about the newsroom is soon to air on tvN. _The Broadcasters_ , directed and written by the team behind the _Answer Me_ series and _Hospital Playlist_ , will revolve around an ensemble cast of characters working in news broadcasting. Queen of romantic comedies Gong Hyo-jin ( _When the Camellia Blooms_ ) returns to the small screen as an ambitious reporter vying for the lead anchor position of the primetime news programme, while Nam Joo-hyuk ( _The School Nurse Files_ ) plays a male weather anchor who aspires to become an announcer. During early announcements of the drama, the production team had confirmed that Nam Joo-hyuk’s character was directly inspired by Kim, and that Gong Hyo-jin’s strong leading lady was based on Kim Seong-sook, the fiery real-life reporter who anchors _Evening Brief SBS_. Rounding out the cast is Yoo Yeon-seok ( _Hospital Playlist_ ) as a brave and reckless PD for an investigative show similar to _Unanswered Questions_ , and Kang Han-na ( _Designated Survivor - 60 Days_ ) as an ambitious announcer. 

Kim himself has thus far remained silent on this phenomenon, but the production team of _The Broadcasters_ say they are still holding out hope that he accepts a cameo appearance. In the meantime, fans of Kim can simply tune in every weekday morning for their daily dose of the weather. 

_Editor: At time of writing, Mr Kim Wonpil was still a weather anchor at SBS. He has since become an announcer and currently anchors SBS Morning At 7._

** Related Articles **  
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KBS News’ Park Jinyoung Set to Cameo in ‘The Broadcasters’  
‘Masters in the House’ Gets Exclusive Glimpse Behind the Scenes of ‘Unanswered Questions’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I'm done???? what a journey :')
> 
> Massive thanks again to the wonderful forochel for colouring my google doc with yellow comment highlights, you are the beef brisket in my broadcast incident, the special to my durian, &c. &c. ;___; <333 and also *whispers* there may be something related from forochel in the works, which I can guarantee is DELIGHTFUL 
> 
> Thanks everyone for coming on this journey and for your lovely comments! If you ever get a chance to watch Jealousy Incarnate (also called Don't Dare To Dream) I would highly recommend it, all the best beats in this story (the helicopter, PD Oh, the aunts Kim and that fiery birthday cake) directly originate from there. Until the next time!! <33


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